


Verd Ori'shya Beskar'gam

by kaasknot



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alien genitalia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Clonecest mention, Dubcon (military coercion), Florid prose, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, Oviposition, Parasitism, Parasitoid-related gore, Pseudo-parental incest, Runaway worldbuilding, Xenophilia, bed sharing, mild drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:48:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8552491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaasknot/pseuds/kaasknot
Summary: "In the second year of the Clone Wars, when whispers of a campaign on Jabiim began circulating through Republic forces, General Plo Koon of the 6th Ground Corps was tasked with the destruction of a Separatist relay station on the edge of the Outer Rim, on a secluded moon orbiting a white star."





	

**Author's Note:**

> For cyan, who wanted parasitic oviposition in the style of Victor Hugo (I was only sort-of ish successful with the latter). Without her, this fic would not exist. Honorable mention goes to zorekryk, who had many helpful thoughts on non-human genitalia and reproductive cycles. Y'all are the best.

I. A Pack Undaunted

In the second year of the Clone Wars, when whispers of a campaign on Jabiim began circulating through Republic forces, General Plo Koon of the 6th Ground Corps was tasked with the destruction of a Separatist relay station on the edge of the Outer Rim, on a secluded moon orbiting a white star. The moon was not formally named and of little importance, being as it was far from any shipping lanes and barren of any resources that could not be more conveniently obtained elsewhere. It was, however, by a quirk of fate and orbital paths, perfectly located to amplify Separatist signals from the entire Lom’arr sector.

According to the venerable minds of the Jedi High Council, it was in the best interests of the Republic that Plo Koon destroy this base.

Plo Koon was neither the greatest nor the least of the Jedi masters who sat in the Council Circle. It was said by many, Koon himself among them, that the position of Councilor had not be thrust upon him, as it had been for most, but that he and it had reached out to encompass one another until the beginning of one and the end of the other was no longer clear to see. Indeed, claiming his seat had been a mere formality for Plo Koon, who had dispensed wisdom and generosity for years prior and with no prompting other than the dictates of his own conscience. Plo Koon was the perfect Jedi for the simple reason that the Order’s philosophies came to him naturally, rather than by the dictates of the Code.

Plo Koon was calm, compassionate, considerate, a superior mediator, unflappable, endowed with a prodigious sense of humor, and deeply attuned to the Living Force. He took great amusement in the contrast between his warm personality and his forbidding outward appearance: he was Kel Dor, and so was inhuman in a way that unsettled many more humanoid species. His antiox mask, which protected his throat from the caustic gases of an oxygen atmosphere, bore two threatening ionization spikes, and his eyes, covered by filigreed lenses, seemed to perpetually glare upon all he beheld. Added to this, he was two meters tall exactly, and towered over others whether it was his desire to intimidate or no.

To those who did not know Master Plo and whose understanding of his character arose from appearance alone, saw it fitting that his preferred battalion, the 104th, was also known as the Wolfpack. Their reputation was as threatening as Plo’s was kind, despite their participation in a great number of relief missions to war-torn systems. The Wolfpack _was_ fierce in battle, and their commander was scarred and terrible to behold; but as is always the case, appearances deceived.

The aforementioned commander, a clone named Wolffe, had begun his life the same as all his brothers: with innocence, and a desire to prove his worth. It was a common belief among the clones that made up the Grand Army of the Republic that their purpose was to repay the indenture of their birth. For many, therefore, the performance of their duty was not merely a source of pride, but an almost sacred obligation. The Republic gave them their lives; they could do no less for the Republic. Wolffe grew from a child to a capable officer with this as the cornerstone of his personality and the lodestone of his moral compass. When he was deployed six months after the battle of Geonosis at the age of ten, General Plo Koon became his touchstone.

But war is not an easy thing to endure, and Wolffe, unlike many, bore his scars upon his face. An encounter with Asajj Ventress at Khorm cost him his right eye, and an encounter with General Grievous in the Abregado system cost him two thousand brothers. He became—not bitter, not this soon in his young life—but hardened. His ability to trust in the decency of strangers was damaged irreparably. He trusted his closest brothers and his general, and permitted no one else to approach.

Plo Koon’s compassion was boundless. He saw in his commander an orphan, a wolfpup, an injured child seeking shelter and guidance. He drew Wolffe under his wing and swore, privately, that he would protect him in every way that he could, for Plo Koon gave love as a parent loves their child (it was not coincidence that he had one of the highest recovery rates of Force-sensitive younglings). He did not tell Wolffe how he saw him. Wolffe was a proud man, who rejected any implication of softness or weakness. He was a warrior, not a child. That he beheld Plo the way a postulant beheld the altar, or the way a youngling beheld his father, did not, in his mind, contradict this. General Plo was a Jedi and a more formidable warrior that Wolffe could ever be; it was right that he should be exalted.

Such were the men that went to Pachys XII, on the order of the Jedi Council and the GAR High Command, to destroy a relay station. It was projected to be a short engagement; naturally, things did not follow according to anyone’s plans.

 

II. The Nature of the Engagement in Which We Find Ourselves

Plo Koon experienced the arrival to Pachys XII in the solitude of his quarters. “Experienced” is the best way for a Force-user to describe the re-entry of a starship from the sterile void of hyperspace to the vibrance of real-time. The Force spoke through all things; it thrummed through the galaxy, no matter how far one traveled from life. Beside a planet, it sang. In the depths of space, it whispered. In the netherworld of hyperspace, it was utterly silent—save for what each person brought with them, and the signatures of their companions. To transition from a murmur of seven thousand to a shout of seven quintillion was an awakening unlike any other; Master Plo found it a reaffirmation of his path and the renewal of his dedication to all beings.

That is, he found it so under normal circumstances. This day, he was too unsettled to revel in its sforzando blast. He was deep in meditation, assessing his body’s homeostasis. A condition had arisen, one he had anticipated and planned for, but which, by the Council’s poor timing, had grown urgent. He had perhaps two or three days’ grace before matters became dire.

He shied from the thought. A trait most unbecoming of a Jedi, but this bodily necessity had always caused Plo distress, and he pulled away from it as a once-burned child might pull away from a stove. He soothed his wayward emotions. His body would hold out long enough; Pachys was not so far from Dorin that he could not complete this mission first. He and the Wolfpack had to; there was no one else available to destroy the Separatist base.

As though summoned by this thought, the sharp, shadowed presence of his commander approached. _Wolffe_. The name aroused in Plo a tangle of images: of competence, bravery, a kindred dry wit; dark hair and eyes—save for the milky gleam of Wolffe’s cybernetic prosthesis. Handsome, perhaps, by human standards, but so rarely smiling. Wolffe in the medbay after the Battle of Khorm, reeling from shock and betrayal, bandages over the side of his face, looking younger than Plo had ever seen him; Wolffe in full armor, taking down droids with his fists and raw determination; Wolffe laughing with Boost and Sinker, the only time Plo had ever seen him laugh from pure joy; Wolffe, standing alone in the hangar of the _Resolute_ , his face impassive while his horror, grief, and rage stained the Force; ranks of clone cadets, little more than two years old, standing to greet him as he toured the cloning facility—a hundred Wolffes in miniature, but each so achingly different.

Plo was certain his feelings for his commander were so encompassing that they edged into attachment. It was unbecoming of a Jedi to form attachments; attachments, it was said, clouded one’s ability to touch the Force.

Master Plo obeyed the Jedi, but he kept his own counsel on the dangers of excess sentiment. When Wolffe entered his quarters, helmet in hand and readiness in every sinew of his body, Plo made no effort to stifle the pleasure he felt.

“Sir, we’ve arrived at Pachys XII.”

“Thank you, Wolffe. I trust the men have been briefed?”

“Yes, sir. We’re waiting on you.”

Plo stood.

So easily said, these two words: “Plo stood”—yet they covered multitudes of agony. Not agony of the body, not yet—his condition was not that far advanced. Discomfort, however, and the desire to hide it, drew a great many agonies of the soul. There was the effort not to hunch about his middle, and the effort to hide his careful breathing. He fought to maintain his customary grace despite the unpleasant pull in his abdomen, and fought not to show how oddly he held himself once erect. Had he not been attuned to the Force, he considered it unlikely that he would have managed it at all. An eternity of restraint compressed into a second’s time. Plo stood.

“Are you alright, sir?”

Such effort, so quickly seen through. Plo blinked through a flicker of wry amusement. “I’m fine, Wolffe. Lead the way.”

Disquiet bled into the Force. Its source: Wolffe. There was something the matter with his general, and the general was trying to hide it. Wolffe had spent his life surrounded by his brothers, reading volumes from the most miniscule of their expressions. He had learned, however, that the faces of others did not conform to the dialect he and his fellow clones had perfected; there were shades of nuance and meaning that were foreign to them. In some ways, their parallel habit of discerning emotion without the face altogether—by necessity of their armor—served them in better stead. Where the face concealed, the body revealed. Plo Koon’s face was hidden by his mask, but the broad strokes of humanoid body language were constant, and moreover, Wolffe, like all his brothers, was a quick study. He had learned to discern his Jedi’s moods, and what he saw now: a laborious ascent, a hunched posture, a stiff bearing, and an unusually curt response to his query, raised in him an alarm that would not be put aside by his general’s weak dismissal.

He followed General Plo down the hall to the turbolift and considered his words carefully. His general was not a rash man, excepting those situations in which he felt action was more needful than following rules. This was a philosophy Wolffe himself was largely incapable of, and thus admired in those he followed. On the whole, however, Plo Koon was not rash, and neither was he harsh. He was a deep thinker, prone more to empathy than condemnation. But it was from a desire to please that Wolffe hesitated from asking outright. If he had somehow offended, then would it not perhaps be wiser to remain silent, and refrain from offending further?

A test, then, to gauge the waters. “The men are amped, sir,” Wolffe said, watching his general closely. “We’ll be in and out before dinner.”

“That would be preferable,” General Plo said, his voice dark with irony.

Wolffe fell back half a pace, stung. It was not unusual for General Plo to speak ironically, but rarely in that tone, and never at his men’s expense. Words rose to Wolffe’s lips, angry, insubordinate, and caustic, and he voiced them before he could restrain himself. Restraint had become difficult to find since losing his eye and a sliver of his frontal lobe to Ventress’s lightsaber.

“A paved road to the base while the clankers laid down their blasters would also be preferable. Is there a reason you doubt your men’s ability, _sir_? Have we failed you, somehow?”

His anger hid a simple truth: Wolffe was wounded to the quick. The abilities of he and his men were the source of pride and a desperate, immature desire to gain the approval of their general—a man who, perhaps as a result of their overwhelming, precocious training and lack of similar role models, they had made into a father figure. The thought that they—that Wolffe—might have failed him was intolerable. Wolffe fell back onto anger, for his own pride, fear, and confusion permitted no other response.

Plo Koon stopped dead before the lift and spoke in a low, urgent voice:

“You must never think that, Wolffe. You and your brothers could never fail me. You may lose a battle, but you will never fail _me_.”

Wolffe flushed warm at the praise, but if it was not dissatisfaction with his men that had changed General Plo’s demeanor, then it was something else—something potentially far worse. Wolffe stepped forward, closing the space between them.

“Then what’s wrong, sir? Is it news from the Jedi Council?” Visions of General Plo being reassigned chased away Wolffe’s pleasure. He reached for the general’s hand—a comfort he took with his most trusted brothers, an expression of closeness and solidarity. He caught himself at the last moment. What was appropriate with his fellow clones was wildly inappropriate with a general.

Plo saw the aborted motion Wolffe made toward his hand, and it was a bitter sorrow to him that Wolffe had not finished it. Plo Koon had many regrets in his life, and the foremost in his mind in recent months was his position over Wolffe, which through moral constraints denied him the closeness he longed for. Being a Jedi was a lonely calling. Priotizing the needs of the many was a noble goal, but it denied the needs of the individual. Plo could recall the last time he had felt warm, living flesh against his, and it was six days ago, when Obi-Wan Kenobi had shaken his hand at the beginning of the council meetings that had led to this very mission.

Moreover, Plo regretted the timing of Wolffe’s question. He admired his commander’s perspicacity, of course; it was admirable and useful in a second-in-command. Now, however, it betrayed Plo. The easiest solution: tell Wolffe the truth. The easiest, but also the hardest. While it would allay Wolffe’s worry, it would also—

Plo clasped his hands behind his back. There were realities of his being Kel Dor that few other species would understand. It was a small, petty fear, but he feared it nonetheless: he did not want to risk Wolffe’s good opinion of him on the butcher’s block of unvarnished truth. Besides, it was a very personal matter. GAR Clones aside, who were, as a rule, delightfully open people, few beings relished speaking of their most intimate secrets. Plo was no different.

A lie of omission, then. “Your concern is a credit to you,” Plo said. “But I am afraid it is… little more than a failing of my Kel Dor constitution. Nothing to concern yourself about; it will pass with a good day’s time spent breathing the atmosphere of home.”

Wolffe’s consternation cleared, and he stood straighter. “That’s why we’re scheduled to visit Dorin after this mission.”

“Indeed,” Plo said, relieved his half-truth had been so well-received. He cued the turbolift.

“If that’s the case, sir, then perhaps you’d better stay on the ship. If it’s a matter of atmosphere.”

“I’m sure I should,” Plo answered. “But that wouldn’t be half as much fun as seeing some explosions.”

Plo felt the eyeroll as much as he heard it in Wolffe’s voice. “Of course, sir. I’ll make sure to say that at your funeral: ‘At least he got to see the explosions.’”

“I would be tremendously obliged.”

Equilibrium thus restored, they continued to the hangar bay. The ride down the conning tower they spent addressing those classified topics not fit for the ears of public hallways; down the central corridor, they clarified their battle plan. Wolffe’s tone was businesslike, his words to the point and focused on their imminent action. His gaze, however, preternaturally piercing by his cybernetic eye, took in Plo’s every movement. He missed nothing: not the careful way Plo carried himself, nor the periodic clenching of his hands, as though he was fighting back waves of pain. Wolffe’s objections had been silenced, but his reservations were building.

They boarded the LAAT/i. Plo took a strap, and Wolffe took the one beside his. No matter the strife between them, no matter the costs of war, it seemed they would always be thus: general and commander, together, standing tall against the enemy.

 

III. Disaster Strikes

The gunship rose from the main hangar of the _Courageous_ like a bee from a flower. Behind it: star-spangled darkness punctuated by the multicolored billows of the Hocterfish Nebula. Before it: the milky curve of the moon and the green and purple wall of Pachys Prime. The _Courageous_ was a tremendous vessel, the largest class capital ship the Republic employed. It was a full kilometer in length, a half-kilometer in width, and a quarter-kilometer high. Beside the grandeur of space, it was a flyspeck on the wall of the Galactic Senate. The LAAT/i that flew from it, a mite upon that fly’s back.

There are certain words whose roots are ambiguous in meaning. “Awe” is one such root. Upon seeing the tremendous sights of space, one person might call them awesome; another might call them awful. In truth, it is a mingling of both that throttles one’s ability to describe the sensation of viewing one’s home planet at a remove: a borderline religious experience on the one hand, what the Jedi call “finding oneself in the Force,” and a deep, overpowering fear on the other, predicated on the awareness of one’s insignificance and cosmic vulnerability. Space is, simply put, awe-inspiring.

Those in the gunship were well-acquainted with the colossal emotions of space travel. They had seen dozens of planets in orbit, and hundreds of spatial phenomena; it is inaccurate to say they were unaffected, but such sights had become familiar, and in the face of a military engagement, easy to compartmentalize. Two squads and an armament of missiles; this was the LAAT/i’s complement. Their goal: to fly close above the terrain, using the peculiar magnetic fields of the moon to disguise their approach. The pale streak of their ion trail traced their vector; upon breaking atmosphere, the trail burst into a rainbow as frozen droplets of water vaporized and refracted the sunlight. The gunship vanished beneath the clouds.

Pachys XII was habitable, by oxygen-breathing standards. Most humanoids would find it cold, but bearable. It had little water; the majority of its moisture was locked in the form of clouds. Those same clouds protected it from the frigid clutch of space, and what would have otherwise been too cold for life was warm enough to support a rich tundra and a swathe of alpine forests near the equator. The magnetic fields that enveloped the gas giant draped over the delicate mass of its moon, whose orbit swung close to the upper atmosphere of its celestial parent, and sent its clouds into a roil. The LAAT/i bucked and jolted, sending its passengers awry; the pilots attempted to compensate, but it was a futile effort. Pockets of dead air buffeted the engines, and walls of turbulence pounded the little ship. A gunner’s pod was ripped off, casting its hapless occupant into the heavens; an airfoil bent alarmingly, and the engines sputtered out.

“General, we’re going down!”

That solitary cry, despairing, from the pilot before freefall caught them.

“Everyone hold on!” General Plo roared, and he raised his hands. All around, his troops reached for each other and the crash webbing stretched along the bulkheads. The general seized the Force and wove with it a cage surrounding the gunship. For long moments nothing changed; but as Plo took the ship in hand, their downward plunge eased. The clones loosened their grips on the webbing; they were moving downward, that was obvious, but it was no longer precipitous, and the turbulence that had thrown them about was now no more than a summer’s breeze against the LAAT/i’s hull. They looked upon their general with awe, a sensation not dissimilar from gazing upon one’s insignificance beside the scale of the universe: Plo stood with his feet spread, his hands outstretched, his head thrown back, and by the mere exertion of his will, the ship settled through the treacherous storm to the still air below. The wind fell silent. The wan light of Pachys XII came through the gunship windows. Still, Plo Koon guided their descent. His troops arrayed around him, entranced and fearful; all knew of the abilities of the Jedi, but to see them displayed in so dire a circumstance, and to such powerful effect, humbled an already self-effacing group of men. It seemed to them that they were witnessing a holy event, a miracle, and in the manner of the very young and ill-experienced, Plo Koon became their prophet. When the gunship touched solid ground and Plo collapsed to his knees, none dared approach him. That is, none except Wolffe.

“General?” he asked. 

It was a moment before Plo could reply. When his voice returned, it was to say, “Casualties?”

“We lost Tank, in the gunner’s pod.”

“Tank.” Plo sighed heavily. “We will have to tell Hightail.”

“What about _you_ , sir? Are you alright?”

Plo pushed to his feet. “I’m fine. Let’s see where we are.”

Hatchet and Cross tripped the emergency release of the LAAT/i door and pried it back. Pale, watered-down light fell upon them, peeking through the omnipresent storm before disappearing. Tundra stretched in every direction, white-rimed grasses creaking. A flock of birds--or what passed for birds on this planet--rose into the air, their fluting calls carrying on the wind.

“Damage report,” Plo said, stepping out of the gunship. The frozen grass crackled under his boots. He turned and looked toward the heavens. There was only the fading trail of their passage to be seen, black against the swirling clouds, and nothing of the _Courageous_. The clouds were an effective cloak.

“Both engines down, sir. I could repair them, but I don’t have the parts. And the starboard airfoil is cracked; it wouldn’t survive a return trip through that.”

Plo Koon’s hands clenched into fists, then relaxed. He straightened, looking to the horizon. “Very well.”

They were stranded on Pachys XII.

 

IV. General Plo Laid Low

Snow fell that evening. It whipped against the tents they had pitched in the shelter of the crippled LAAT/i, a blasterfire patter that stung exposed skin. Temperatures had dropped sharply after sunset, the wind picking up until it blew in an angry howl across the plain. The twenty-three men stood in a cluster in the middle of the gunship cargo bay, around a heating unit rigged together from the busted engine coil.

“They can’t retrieve us, not if they have to pass through that storm,” Piston said, from where he sat hunkered by the power cable leading to the other engine. He was a pilot, but like all pilots in the GAR he knew his vehicle and his own abilities inside and out. If he couldn’t fly it through the turbulence, it was a reasonable assumption that none of his brothers could, either.

His co-pilot, Mint, shifted beside him. “The engines made a hell of a contrail when they failed,” he said. “This one’s compression coil fried from the stress, and it fried the rest of its systems, too. If anyone in the base was watching, there was a giant arrow pointing to our location for at least ten minutes. Maybe less, if we’re lucky.”

“Our supplies will last us about a week.” This from Lieutenant Shrike, the leader of the platoon. “That’s going on water; if we find anything potable on-planet we could stretch that.”

The lenses of General Plo’s eyepieces caught the red glow of the heating coil as he turned to Wolffe. “How does this affect our plan?”

“Obviously we can’t perform an aerial bombardment as planned. We have limited intel on the base itself--just what the probes collected. The cloud cover is too thick.”

“What not just blast it from orbit?” Mint asked.

“Because the base probably has a ship, and if we want to get off this rock we need it in one piece,” Wolffe snapped. Plo placed a hand on his shoulder, and he subsided.

“Commander Wolffe is right. I have informed Admiral Gyatso not to attempt a rescue mission, as only my presence on board can guarantee the ship’s survival. Our mission is now two-fold: to neutralize the base and to secure transport.” He looked down abruptly. “Wolffe, if you could take over.”

He heard his second-in-command’s alarm through the Force like a ring against crystal. “General?”

“Please, if you would? I find I must meditate.”

Wolffe’s denial was immediate. What he said aloud, however, was “Yes, sir.” Plo felt his eyes on him until he fled the ship, but his worry followed through the Force. Plo slipped over the irregular ground and staggered; raw pain drew him to his knees. He gasped, pressing his hand against his stomach.

“’There is no death, there is the Force,’” he said to himself. He let the pain pass before standing again. This time, he was more careful with his footing. His panic had eased, and he forced himself to confront what had caused it.

Saving his men would be the last thing he would do. He had gone over the maps rigorously with Wolffe: two days to the base on foot, one day to destroy it and return to the ship. Three days total. He had maybe two days before the damage became irreversible. After that, he would begin to die. It would be a lingering death, at least. He would be able to save his men’s lives, if not his own. His hands shook, and it wasn’t the cold nipping at his exposed skin that did it. Bioluminescent lichen scattered across the nighttime vista, shining like stars; the alien glow from the gunship threw a red wash over the dell. To the northeast, beyond a rank of hills, he saw another glow, equally alien, this one white and cold. The location of the base. That the droid forces hadn’t sent a scouting party was concerning; either they didn’t have the numbers to spare, or they already knew the Wolfpack was coming.

Plo’s breath fogged through the antiox mask. Condensation crystals had begun collecting on its ionization spikes hours ago, and now, unprotected as he was from the icy bite of the wind, they were beginning to spread over his face plate. The cold centered him. An external pain gave him a new focus. He settled into the Baran Do kneeling stance and took in a deep breath.

Fatalistic thinking would benefit nobody. He was not dying yet; he would not begin to die until two days from now. Perhaps a solution to the atmospheric turbulence could be found. Perhaps they had miscalculated the distance to the base. Dorin was a mere twenty-five lightyears away; he wasn't truly dead until Dorin medicine pronounced him beyond help. Perhaps, a tiny voice of hope whispered, it wasn't yet the end of Plo Koon’s journey. There was no predicting the will of the Force. Countless tiny pulses of energy speckled against his consciousness like raindrops on a lake: the lichen, the hibernating bodies of native rodents beneath the turf, the birds bedding down in a dell half a kilometer away. These comforted him and distracted him from the swollen, tender ache in his belly. If he _was_ to die here, at least he had the privilege of seeing Pachys XII on a winter’s night: a sight so remarkable in its beauty that not even sub-freezing temperatures could diminish it.

A spasm of pain drove him from the shelter of his thoughts. His body longed to expel its burden, but wouldn’t permit him simply to lay it out in the open. His own biochemistry fought against his body’s best interests. The muscles of his lower belly spasmed once again, so forcefully he found himself curled over his knees, his hands pressing into the frozen ground. He was losing time. Pain, cold--he reached a hand up to his mask. The intake vents were clogging with ice. How long had he been outside?

“General!”

“General Plo!”

The voices were distant. Light flickered weirdly across the sere landscape. Lichen, he told himself. The  
lichen glowed. Footsteps. Approaching fast. His head was so cold; he realized his shapi’s organs had moved past pain into numbness.

“I found him! I found the general!”

“Wolffe,” Plo muttered.

“Ah, fuck me.” A rough response, but the hands that rolled him over were gentle. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. You are definitely not supposed to be that color, sir.”

“Wolffe,” Plo sighed.

“Hold on, sir, I’ll get you back to camp. You’ll be alright.”

Wolffe crouched down and with a few steadying breaths, hauled Plo over his shoulder. He didn’t seem to give any sign of the terrible burden Plo must have been. “Damn Jedi,” he heard distantly. “Wandering off on a strange planet like it’s a goddamned springtime afternoon.”

Plo lost consciousness between one breath and the next.

 

V. Commander Wolffe Will Not be Turned Aside

“Gently!” Wolffe snapped to his brothers as they laid General Plo out upon the bedroll. “He isn’t some clanker to toss aside like a sack of old parts!”

“Kriff, Wolffe! We know!”

Wolffe threw aside the rerebrace he’d just removed in a fit of frustration. “You’re not acting like you know!”

Shrike pulled away from the tent opening to stand in Wolffe’s face. “You don’t like how we’re handing the general, you can shove it up your exhaust vent. He’s _our_ general, too.”

“Your general, _my_ responsibility. You won’t be catching the flak if he dies.”

Harsh words, and Wolffe knew it. Everyone present would suffer if their Jedi died on their watch; the High Command would demand a reckoning. Wolffe had seen it before, with Master Poulemn: the entire company responsible for his death had been sent back to Kamino for reconditioning. He glared Shrike down and let it hide his fear. His fear for the consequences if General Plo died, yes--but also fear of him dying. Wolffe loved him. Not the way he loved his brothers (Sinker and Boost, he amended privately), but as fierce a love just the same. General Plo had saved his life more times than he could count, had sat by his bedside every day after he had lost his eye. _His_ bedside, the bedside of a clone. He hadn’t been worthy of the honor, and yet General Plo had given it to him. He watched his brothers lay the general out and he stripped off his armor as quickly as his cold-numbed fingers could manage.

He had found the general on a ridge, facing the aurora glow of the enemy base. “Facing” as well as he could have, anyway; General Plo had been lying prostrate in a fine layer of dry, drifted snow, his skin icy to the touch, the delicate breathing tubes from his sensory organs to the antiox mask an alarming shade of blue.

“What was going through your head, old man,” Wolffe whispered as he peeled off his bodysuit. His brothers were doing the same for General Plo, stripping off his rough-spun robes and handing them to Poker to fold. Hypothermia was no time for modesty. Shrike was the one who tore the seal open on the alumifoil heat blanket. Wolffe got down on the bedroll beside the general, both of them naked as the day they were born, and around them, Wolffe’s brothers tucked in the blanket. Wolffe’s skin broke out in goosebumps at the frigid touch of the general’s skin against his. “What the _fuck_ were you thinking.”

It had been strange, the way the general had pulled away from the briefing. Plo Koon reveled in the harmless missions, the ones with big explosions and no casualties. Even this setback shouldn't have ruffled his feathers: a little excitement to liven up an otherwise quotidian neutralization. Instead, he’d gone rigid and thrust the briefing onto Wolffe’s shoulders. Wolffe didn’t mind that. It was his duty to pick up his general’s slack, and he was proud to do it--to help however he could. But when it came at the cost of finding his general had _wandered into a tundra_ without even a parka to keep him warm? Wolffe shivered and wrapped his arms around Plo Koon more tightly, rubbing his chilled flesh as though it might banish the memory of finding him slumped down, unmoving, as still as death.

Kel Dor skin was different from a human’s. It was thicker, smoother. It didn’t move the same over the fat and muscle beneath. Instead of hair, General Plo’s body sported swirls of color, all variations on the baseline peach: ambers, light browns, even cream. He looked nothing like the daydreams of Wolffe’s adolescence, back when he had wasted time by pondering his future. Wolffe stared at his general’s face. He’d never seen him so vulnerable. His head lolled back, his sensory organs mashed against the bedroll. It was unnerving to see such a godly figure look so mortal. Wolffe studied the design etched into his mask. He wondered if those were plants native to Dorin. Their lines had been packed with frost when Wolffe had found the general; he was reluctant to touch it now, for fear of being burned with cold. If he could have taken it off, he would have. It could only be doing harm to the general’s skin.

Wolffe was not a man given to introspection. He was a warrior first, above all. What pleasure he found, he found through action and the performance of his duty. Through the animal need of skin against skin, and the bonding exhilaration of sex with his brothers. Lying still and chewing on his fears was anathema to him; if he was able, he was up and inspecting troops, bolstering morale, inspecting supplies, hacking at thickets of paperwork, or in some other way _doing_. This waiting, this eternity of stillness while he worried for his general’s well-being, was as agonizing as the three-month bedrest and physical therapy he’d been assigned after losing his eye.

They were alone in the tent, now. There was a watch outside, or there was if Shrike had done his job properly, and a perimeter set up to give them advance warning if any clankers showed. They were vulnerable by the LAAT/i. It was an easy target. Tomorrow they would have to move. The tundra was a liability; there weren’t any places to hide, and the droids would be able to see them coming from miles away. If there was an upside to the entire mess, it was that their armor blended perfectly into this gray and white world.

General Plo made a low noise, and Wolffe’s attention focused. “General?”

“Wolffe,” he heard clearly. “What happened?”

“You were an osik-brained fool, is what happened,” Wolffe replied. He balled his hands into fists behind the general’s back to stop them from shaking with relief.

“It seems I m-miscalculated my ability to t-tolerate the cold,” the general said, his body reawakening to shiver in earnest.

Unbelievable. “Yeah, you could say that, sir.”

A moment passed, then-- “Am I in your bedroll?”

“Well, it was either that or let you freeze to death. Sir.”

“I should g-go to my own.” This statement, ludicrous as it was, was accompanied by a poorly-coordinated attempt to pull aside the alumifoil blanket. Wolffe seized the general’s arms and pinned them to his sides.

“General Plo, if you don’t stop _right now_ I’m going to put a bolt in your head, just to see if it really is hollow. Do you understand me? _Sir_?”

“I don’t w-wish to be an imposition,” the general said after a moment’s silence. “I can r-recuperate just as easily in m-my own bedroll.”

“No, you can’t, that’s why we’re both wrapped in a heat blanket like stale rations. Lie down and shut up.”

General Plo did so meekly. “Why do I f-feel that your respect for me is c-contingent on how well I follow your orders?” he asked, amusement and--Wolffe didn’t want to say _fondness_ , that was too much of a presumption--coloring his voice.

Wolffe threw his leg over the general’s to keep him properly pinned. “Probably because it is, sir. If you act like a di’kut, I’m going to treat you like one.”

He hadn’t thought twice about doing it, trapping the general’s leg with his own. It had seemed the best way to keep him from trying to kill himself again. But it forced their bellies and groins together, and the general went still. Short of the shivers that wracked his frame, he was motionless, and Wolffe wondered if he had overstepped a boundary. He had learned that how clones treated nudity was not common, in the galaxy. He jerked his leg back.

“Sorry, sir.”

“It’s fine,” General Plo replied.

“You know, given your track record with saying that today, I’m going to choose not to believe you.”

“That is, of course, your prerogative.” The general’s tone was light, but the tension hadn’t left his body. A sinking feeling ran through Wolffe. The general didn’t like touching him. Didn’t like being this close and intimate with--with a clone. He swallowed back the lump that rose in his throat. Not every species enjoyed touch the way humans did, he reminded himself. Wolffe craved it, but that didn’t mean the general did. Wolffe’s arms prickled. He forced himself to keep holding onto the general’s body. It didn’t matter whether General Plo liked Wolffe touching him or not; he was going to keep getting touched until he stopped shivering, and not a moment before.

Silence fell. Wolffe remembered the pile-ups he’d shared with his brothers, back when it hadn’t felt like exposing an open wound. Maybe he understood a little better how the general felt than he’d like to admit. He didn’t tolerate casual touch, anymore. He missed it, but not more than he wanted to rip the hands off any that touched him without his explicit permission.

He forced himself to relax. The general was safe, the men were safe for the time being, the snow had stopped falling, and all he could hear was the whistle of wind past the tent guylines and the low murmur of his brothers. Wolffe shifted himself, easing the numbness in his hip. The general seemed to be meditating. There was a certain quality of stillness he gained when being especially Jedi. Wolffe had learned over time when to recognize it, so as not to disturb him. He let his mind drift.

He didn’t mean to, but he remembered the sensation of his groin pressed against the general’s. Wolffe was used to the press of another cock against his; a hundred and one encounters in his life, both innocent and less-so, had taught him to expect it, whether soft or hard. General Plo hadn’t had a penis at all, as far as Wolffe could tell. Just a pubic mound, and then nothing. Wolffe would admit--grudgingly--that he wasn’t the most experienced when it came to non-human, non-male sexual exploration. One of the ARCs might be a better choice for that: they were so long from their brothers that they had so seek comfort _somewhere_. Wolffe had a vague impression that women had holes instead of cocks, and that according to the rumor mill, Twi’leks had _two_ cocks. He’d even heard that certain, less humanoid species had cocks that disappeared inside their bodies, like motts’ and loth-cats’ did. Maybe the general had something like that. Or maybe he was a woman? Wolffe pushed the thoughts away. It wasn’t his place to speculate on his general’s equipment. It was to get him warm, then to return to a proper distance. He focused on the sound of the wind and mentally disassembled and reassembled his deecees.

Something prodded him low in the stomach. Not like a finger poke, the way Sinker sometimes did in the showers to yank his chain, and not quite like the brush of a brother’s erection. Wolffe sprang to awareness. It wasn’t him--he was soft, thank the Force, or whatever the fuck he supposed to thank, but there was something rising from the junction of General Plo’s legs much the way an erection did. Wolffe couldn’t make out the details in the darkness beneath the heat blanket; the best he could tell was that it definitely wasn't human. That ended that mystery.

What he didn’t expect was for the general to yank back like he’d been bitten and rip free from the heat blanket so suddenly the cold air hit Wolffe’s naked chest like a slap.

“What the--!”

“You have my sincerest apologies, Wolffe,” General Plo said, holding the blanket over his lap as though he was afraid his cock would pop off and fly away.

Wolffe reached for his blacks. “We all get hard,” he snapped, his cheeks hot, as he shoved his feet into the pants legs. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

The general didn’t reply, he just sat there like a bump on a log, the damn blanket hiding his modesty. Wolffe managed to pull his blacks up over his hips before his frustration got the better of him. “What the fuck is it!” he demanded. “You’ve been acting strangely, sir, and don’t give me that line of osik about ‘needing to breathe Dorin air,’ that’s not why you nearly killed yourself just now. There is something _wrong_.”

“There’s nothing wrong.” General Plo wasn’t meeting his gaze. Wolffe wasn’t sure how he could tell through the lenses, but his gut told him the general was avoiding him while sitting stock still on the bedroll.

“Bantha shit! You’re in pain! Don’t even try to tell me you’re not, sir, I’m in charge of a battalion of young idiots. I know what it looks like when someone is trying to hide a gut wound.” As soon as he said it, Wolffe realized it was true. The way the general held himself too stiffly, the way his breath faltered when his footing slipped, the way he couldn’t turn too quickly without his brow creasing. It was exactly the way a wounded brother would hold himself to keep from worrying his unit. Gooseflesh broke out on Wolffe’s skin, though that could have as easily been from the cold as from horror. “Little Gods, sir, what are you hiding? You--you’re not dying, are you?”

The way Wolffe spoke those words, as a frightened child might, cracked Plo Koon’s composure. He had thought to keep his impending decline and death from his men to protect them, but he should have known better than to underestimate their observational skills or their loyalty. He bowed his head. How cruel of him, to deny those who had so little something as small as the truth.

“Yes,” he said. “I am.”

The air seemed driven from Wolffe’s lungs.

“It’s a consequence of my species,” Plo went on, determined to see this through. “Kel Dor are egg-layers, and when we develop a clutch, we are obliged to lay it or die.” He indicated his stomach. “I am carrying a clutch, and I cannot lay it.”

Wolffe stared at him. His bare skin glowed in the dim light of the camp lantern, his cybernetic eye a shocking gleam from the shadows. “You’re dying.”

“I’m afraid I am. Unless--well. That seems unlikely, in any case.”

“Unless?” Wolffe looked up at him, and the hope on his face was terrible to behold. “Unless what?”

Plo sighed. “My clothes, if you please.” Wolffe did, and Plo mustered his words as he dressed. It seemed as if the choice had been taken from his hands. It was just as well. Plo was afraid, and he didn’t want to be alone in his final moments. He hated the thought of causing Wolffe pain, but a small, selfish part of him was glad for telling the truth. He was only flesh and blood, Jedi or no.

Finally, he could stall no longer. Wolffe was still kneeling before him, the top of his blacks draped around his hips and the lean line of his torso bare to the cold of the tent. _They really are handsome men_ , Plo thought. He took a deep breath and centered himself. Then he began his explanation.

 

VI. Anatomy of a Jedi Master

It is a relic of humano-centric, mammalian thought that sentient reproduction involves bearing live young. It is a further relic of the same that all species can be divided into opposing sexes--male and female--in order to do so. The Kel Dor of Dorin held to neither assumption. They were a non-mammalian, warm-blooded species, _Birdans anemoiae_ , who laid eggs and whose evolutionary ancestor was similar in appearance to a nuna. Moreover, Kel Dor were hermaphroditic--all members of the species could fertilize and lay eggs. It took a good many years before the concept of a bi-gendered society was fully understood by Kel Dor social and biological scientists; in less-educated regions of the planet, it was still taken as a sign of the depravity of offworlders.

The chief difference in the reproductive habits of the Kel Dor and the rest of the galaxy, however, was not that they laid eggs, or even that they displayed hermaphrodism. Rather, it was that Kel Dor were parasitic ovipositors. In order for their young to hatch, a host must die to sustain them.

It is not an unusual occurrence in the animal kingdom. Parasitism is the preferred method among microorganisms, where food sources are limited; but even among higher-order insects it is prevalent. The cloudy mosp on Corellia is infamous for stuffing pillid caterpillars so full of eggs that pupated mosps rupture out of the expired caterpillar’s body. Certain heiken on Devaron even cannibalize members of their own species: the female lays her fertilized eggs in the body of the male after mating, whereupon the larvae consume his nervous tissue. As is inevitable in these circumstances, however, revulsion arises. Perhaps one sees an image of the hollowed-out corpse of a caterpillar, filled with nothing but larvae; perhaps one sees the aftermath of Alderaanian lissins upon a herd of nerfs--animals blinded from the juvenile lissin’s mindless hunger, where it was laid in the tear duct by its mother. Parasitism, while common, is nevertheless an ugly business. The history of Dorin was no less ugly.

In the days before the Western Unification, which outlawed slavery, it was not uncommon for prospective parents to implant their eggs in a hapless sentient. While the placid, slow-moving ten-da was domesticated for egg-laying since prehistoric times, there was a strong belief, especially in the countries that fell beneath the rule of the Jomdaru Empire, that the nature of a clutch’s host impacted the development of the children within. A stupid, bovine host would result in stupid, bovine children. Far better to use recaptured escaped slaves, whose cunning and independence were otherwise a liability, to foster children.

This was a remarkably slow superstition to die. It was common practice to execute criminals via implantation, an act often rationalized as poetic justice, especially for child molesters. In the words of the warden of Hepmup Prison in the year 2877 DPE, “We make them pay for their crimes and sow seeds for a better future.” During the years leading up to the Second Unification War, doctor after highly-respected doctor released papers on the positive benefits of implanting one’s clutch in a sentient body. At its heart this was a classist issue, as only wealthy Kel Dor could afford the cost of a sentient host; it was cited as “proof” that their poorer brethren were no better than the animals in which they implanted. Therefore, it was long understood that if a doctor on Dorin wished to advance, he had better support sentient hosts. Indeed, this pressure to endorse was what led to the most vile sentients’ rights violations in Kel Dor history, the Gedkeman invasion of Pinja, where ethnic Pinjan freedom-fighters were slaughtered and their spouses implanted with newly-fertilized eggs in front of the town crèche. The Unification Wars themselves, while fighting against systemic genocides for a better future, were not innocent; it was through unethical experiments conducted on both sides that the matter of sentient versus livestock hosts was settled once and for all: there was no difference in the development of the clutch.

The scars left by this bloody history remained in the form of laws and extreme social taboo. The only comparable crime in non-Kel Dor jurisprudence was that of combined torture, cannibalism, and gross endangerment of children, for it was understood that there were two sets of victims in a sentient implantation: the host, and the children born from them.

It is no fault of an egg where it is implanted. It cannot help the circumstances of its incubation; regardless of what body it is placed into, it can no more prevent its biochemical liquidation of the tissues surrounding it than a human fetus can prevent its encroachment upon its mother’s resources.

A full gestation lasted for approximately seven months. The larvae fed voraciously on their host for the first four months--modern obstetric practices strongly recommend euthanasia and proper storage of the carcass after three months, to prevent needless suffering--before carving their way out via “egg teeth,” or hardened spines on the top of the larval Kel Dor’s head. If the animal had not died prior to this event, the escape of up to ten bolo-ball sized larvae was usually sufficient to do the job. When they encountered open air, the larvae pupated and spent another three months in the care of crèche attendants. It is theorized that the unusually fast Kel Dor gestation period was due to their nutrient dense larval incubation.

A final note should be made, regarding the anatomy of a Kel Dor. Normally such an invasive turn of study would be considered gauche, but it nevertheless proves necessary for the continuance of this story. As previously stated, all individuals produce eggs, and all individuals can fertilize them. The limiting factor in the speed of reproduction, as with most creatures, is the production of eggs; oogenesis varies from individual to individual, but usually occurs once every five years. Spermatogenesis, on the other hand, occurs continuously.

The reproductive organs of the Kel Dor are thus: first, an ovipositor, the organ through which they lay their eggs. It is on average forty centimeters in length, and retracts into the pelvic cavity when not in use. The second genital organ is the cloaca, roughly in the position of a humanoid vagina. This multipurpose organ is the orifice through which Kel Dor excrete waste products, and through which they exchange semen.

It is a peculiarity of the Kel Dor reproductive cycle that their unfertilized eggs, if left unlaid, would become toxic to their bearers. Rather than harmlessly resorbing or leaving their bodies as a waste product, there was one and only one way for a clutch to leave its parent: via the ovipositor, into a host organism. Kel Dor anthropologists speculated that this seemingly deleterious trait arose in consequence to the violence of incubation. As children were collected and raised communally away from their parents, there was little intrinsic drive to procreate as there was in species who directly bore or incubated their young. Raising one’s own children was not a part of a reproducing couple’s worldview; child-rearing occurred not as a pair-bonding exercise, but late in life, after retirement, as a way of honoring the wisdom gained from a life long-lived. This divorce from their offspring meant that very few Kel Dor would choose to procreate at all. It was therefore theorized that evolution selected for traits which increased the Kel Dor likelihood to reproduce, and the particular mutation that proved successful was one that forced Kel Dor to implant their infertile eggs in the body of a ten-da every four to five years, or risk the eggs breaking down in their bodies and killing them through septic shock. Happily for the ten-da, it was a minor invasion of their daily routines: once laid, the eggs would break down harmlessly in their bodies, and rarely caused undue complications.

This was the history which Plo Koon inherited, and the genetic burden against which he now strove.

 

VII. Wolffe’s Reply

The account which Plo gave to his commander in the cold of their tent was considerably shorter than the above. When a topic is of an intensely personal nature, bringing voice to it is abhorrent. The individual attempts to swallow the words back even as they spit them out. Plo did, however, convey the broad strokes: he was member of an egg-laying species; he direly needed to lay eggs; he had planned to go to Dorin to procure the services of an obstetrics facility, but had found his way blocked first by the Jedi council, and then the hostile skies of Pachys XII. He even managed to explain, in rough, unkind words toward his species and its evolutionary path, that he was a parasitoid, and was required by the dictates of his own biology to lay them inside a luckless animal.

Wolffe listened, his hands resting on his knees. When Plo’s words finally dried up, his face was set in that intent expression which Plo had seen upon the faces of the clone cadets as they sat at their terminals. All clones were uncommonly quick to learn, a product of their gene cocktail and childhood learning environment; that sharp, clever expression on Wolffe’s face made affection well up in Plo’s chest.

He said, “So we just need to find you a big enough animal. Then you can lay your eggs in it.”

A frisson of shock ran through Plo Koon’s limbs. Not for the speed at which Wolffe arrived at his solution--the 104th was preferred in the GAR for logistics-heavy missions, as Wolffe had a remarkable gift for cutting through to the heart of a problem and isolating how to solve it--but rather the calmness with which Wolffe received the news. When Plo had been much, much younger and sex arose to the attention of the Initiates, Plo had eagerly shared his differences with his peers. Their reception had not been pleasant. The scars it left--and those that continued to be left, with every person who knew or learned about Kel Dor physiology--had taught Plo Koon a brutal lesson: do not speak about yourself to others. For Wolffe not only to accept this revelation, but to pass over it? Plo could not have imagined such a scenario. He felt humbled before his commander’s matter-of-fact acceptance. Were he to think about it, he might suspect that, to a clone, every non-clone was a new source of the bizarre; each day was an exercise in adapting to diversity. Kel Dor reproduction wasn't any stranger than Human reproduction, in their limited experience: a Human woman with unfamiliar genitalia, distended into grotesque size by the infant within her, would seem little different than a Kel Dor with an ovipositor and offspring who killed their host.

Nevertheless, “My time is very short, Wolffe. We don't have time for a protracted hunt, and I don't have the stamina to keep up.”

Wolffe’s answer was immediate. “We’ll be your legs, sir. We need to move position tomorrow anyway; we’ll see if anything crops up on the scanners.”

Plo bowed his head. Truly, he did not deserve the devotion these men gave him. The responsibility he felt in that moment, the reciprocal obligation built on love and trust that bound him and Wolffe together, was overwhelming. Words were inadequate, yet they needed to be said: “Thank you, Wolffe.”

“Of course, sir.” As he said this, Wolffe’s body was rocked by a violent shiver. Gooseflesh had arisen over his naked skin, and what little of his blacks he wore did nothing to protect the rest.

How careless Plo had been! He raised himself from his nest of blankets. “You're cold,” he said. “What good is it to save me from hypothermia if you succumb to it yourself?” He drew Wolffe to his feet, which also were bare. “Take back your bedroll. I have my own waiting.”

Wolffe’s reply was lost, for in that moment he turned and the camp light washed over his stomach. He was exceedingly fit, as all clones were; their training regimen to cope with the stresses of battle was formidable. But Plo did not see the chiseled torso of a young man in the prime of his life. Time seemed to stop; around him, the Force resonated like a plucked string.

 _Here._ The thought rose like an baneful spirit from the depths of his brain. _This is a good host._

It would be so easy. Wolffe wouldn't fight him; in fact, Plo could order him to stay still and he would, and let Plo embed his ovipositor in his abdomen. Plo would be free from this pain and he would _live_.

Plo backed away from Wolffe so quickly he tripped over the discarded heat blanket. His egg bladder spasmed in thwarted want.

“Sir?”

“I'm--not fine. I'm not fine at all, Wolffe. But I will suffice.”

“That's… good.” His commander’s expression was inscrutable, but there was a hunch to his shoulders that betrayed his thoughts, and the way he hurriedly pulled on the rest of his uniform told Plo more than enough.

“I'm not pulling away from _you_ ,” he rushed to say. “Rather, I am pulling away from my instincts. I'm… afraid they can't be trusted in close proximity to my men, right now.”

Wolffe paused in closing the seams of his blacks to look up at his general. Such innocence he had, to be unaware of the effect of his appearance: a well-formed soldier, severely complected but softened in the low light, clad only in a black bodyglove, the collar of which fell low to his hands and bared a narrow triangle of skin over his chest: a more tantalizing intimacy than when he had been naked to the waist. Plo felt a more conventional yearning at the sight, for which he was grateful--but it was no more welcome.

“I see,” Wolffe said, his expression turning grim. “I’ll tell them to keep to themselves, tomorrow.”

“There is no need.” Plo clasped his hands behind his back. “I am still the master of my instincts. And on that note, Commander, I will leave you for the night.” He bowed and swept from the tent before more conflicting feelings could arise.

Outside, the air was crisp and still. Native birds chimed in the distance, magnified by the low temperatures; the soft pinging of the cooling engine coil counterpointed the soft gasps of one of his men, caught in the midst of pleasure. Plo sighed. He hadn't the heart to tell Wolffe that the Force was quite clear: there were no animals of sufficient size for a thousand kilometers around. There were only his men. And Plo Koon would die before he implanted in one of his men.

 

VIII. An Indecent Proposal

It was a broad, grass-covered meadow, about two hundred meters long and one hundred across, tucked at one end into the edge of a rocky depression before sloping gently upwards to the northeast, the direction of the droid base ten kilometers away. The day was dry and cold, the ever-present clouds raised to a lofty white from the sullen gray of the day before; wind darted to and fro, from one direction to the next, as though unable to make up its mind. The Wolfpack slipped over the edge of this dell as silently as the hunters they were named after, their kamas and the loose straps of their packs flapping as the wind caught them. Their armor blended against the sky; they moved through the grass like slivers of cloud dropped to the earth. Desiccated seed heads bobbed on withered stalks, brushing against their armor and dancing a waltz with the wind. They had marched for the better part of a day, covering well over thirty kilometers. In every protected dell like this, thickets of grass rose to waist-height, their seed heads ungrazed. No herbivore larger than a vole preyed upon these fields; no predator larger than a fox sought them out.

“We will camp here,” General Plo said in a low voice, in that particular tone that meant Jedi mysticism was happening.

Wolffe ground his teeth in the privacy of his helmet. It was as good a site as any; flattening the grass would be a chore, but it would protect from the wind and visually from the droid base. That wasn't what bothered him. What bothered him was that they hadn't seen a single creature larger than those damned birds all day, and the general didn't seem surprised or dismayed. Like he had expected it.

It wasn't Wolffe’s place to question his Jedi in front of the men, no matter how idiotic he was acting. He tripped the squad comms. “We’re making camp here. Cross, take a team and flatten the grass. Shrike, you're in charge of tent detail. Piston, you're on latrines.” He lowered the two water canisters from his back before shucking off his pack. “How we doing, sir?”

It was a loaded question. General Plo’s condition had worsened steadily over the course of the day, with each kilometer they covered; Wolffe couldn't have helped but notice. When they had broken camp before sunrise, the general had seemed well enough. His movements had been free, if careful, and his stride easy. He had laughed with the Pack and innocently described the contents of his nutrition shake to the resident shiny. Things had seemed… not good, not when his general was dying, but better than expected.

But that had been before the thirty kilometer forced march. Wolffe was not in the habit of seeing General Plo as a mortal man. He was a Jedi, and greater than he; that the general might falter and stumble, or go gray at a wrong step, or become winded on a mild slope, unnerved Wolffe deeply. He watched General Plo’s powerful form and felt sick that so tremendous and vital a man could ever have ailed without his noticing.

To Wolffe’s question, the general said only, in a deceptively light tone, “I’m very much looking forward to sitting down.”

“The Force talking to you?” Wolffe asked. Most clones regarded Jedi powers with a sort of wary caution, tempered with calculated indifference. Plo supposed it was the Jedi’s own fault for not teaching them about it. He felt a pang of regret that he wouldn't be able to show Wolffe how to meditate. The thought had never occurred to him before, but now that he was dying, he found his list of regrets was longer than he had suspected.

“Something is going to happen here,” he finally said. “I don't know what, but it will happen on this meadow.”

Wolffe turned back to the meadow. His face was hidden by his helmet, but his suspicion was tangible. “Any idea if it's good or bad?”

“It's too tangled to sense,” Plo replied. “You go on, I’m going to stay here and meditate. Perhaps the Force wishes me to see something. If you need me, my comms channel is open.”

“Yes, sir.” A moment’s pause, then, “When should I send out the search party?”

Wry amusement colored Plo’s voice. “I was distracted last night. Today, I will be more mindful. Does that satisfy?”

There was a quality of peace about his general that Wolffe did not like. It wasn’t true peace; it was the peace of a cease-fire: tense, fragile, and fleeting. No, that wasn’t it. It was the tired, relieved peace that settles in the wake of a surrender. Wolffe picked his way down the rocky incline so he didn’t wind up hitting his superior officer. If General Plo wanted to give up, that was his choice. But Wolffe didn’t have to accept it.

Setting up camp took only a matter of minutes, the process honed to a fine art by years of practice. Each man carried half of a two-man tent. Wolffe shared with Shrike; they said little to each other as they set it up, each too lost in his own thoughts for conversation. It seemed as though the mission was damned from the outset: first the crash, then General Plo nearly freezing to death, then the revelation of the night before. Wolffe kept glancing to where the general sat, clearly visible on the top of the berm, kneeling in one of his Jedi positions. It was a warm day, relatively speaking; it wasn’t snowing, at any rate, though Wolffe had no illusions of this mildness lasting past nightfall. The general probably wasn’t freezing. He looked so strong, from a distance; he gave no sign that he was--

Wolffe fumbled the guyline and the tent stake went flying. Shrike gave him a sharp look. “You know,” he said, “I’m not blind.”

“What’s that supposed to mean.”

Shrike picked up the tent stake and lobbed it at Wolffe’s head. “There’s something wrong with the general.”

There wasn’t any point denying it. Wolffe looked down at the stake. It was sturdy and blunt, like clones were. “I need you do me a favor,” Wolffe said slowly. “The general doesn’t need to know.”

“He’ll find out,” Shrike said with an unimpressed--but curious--expression.

“Then let him. But this is between you, me, and the men you assign.”

That was definitely curiosity on Shrike’s face. “Yeah, sure.”

“The general needs a live animal. At least the mass of a man.”

A long pause. “You sure you’re okay, Wolffe? Did you drink any water?”

“I’m _fine_.” Wolffe bristled. He forced his hackles down. “But the general isn’t. He needs the animal for… Jedi shit. I’m going to leave it at that; it isn’t my business to tell.”

Shrike looked down at the slipknot he was tying the slack rope into. “Haven’t seen anything that big all day.”

“I noticed. That’s why I want you to send out scouts.”

“We’re sending out scouts anyway.”

“Then tell a couple to go a little farther afield. And call in if they find anything larger than a fekking mott.” Wolffe rammed the stake into the ground and tied off the guyline. The tent stood regulation perfect.

“And it’s for the general?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Hector and Shock have been getting restless.”

Hector was a runner. He had a hard time maintaining mass for the quarterly weigh-ins because he was always taking laps around the ship; he was exactly the kind of di’kut to take a run right after a road march. Shock, though--Shock was just antsy. “They’ll do,” Wolffe said. “Send them to me, first.”

“Yes, sir.”

Above the camp, Plo Koon felt the Force flow through him. His own heart was the drumbeat; the grass was a soughing hum beneath the sleepy descants of the native rodents, hibernating beneath the topsoil. The hearts of his men were melody; the neighboring flocks of birds were counterpoint. The planet itself, the combined thrum of all its life echoing into the Force, so large it was barely audible, hung like the background radiation of the universe. Plo meditated on the symmetry of the Force, that it would arrange humbler structures to reflect the forms of the incomprehensibly huge.

He could hear Wolffe’s disquiet as clearly as an out-of-tune windchime on a gusty day. He was worried and fearful, though he hid it well for a non-Jedi. All the clones were trained in masking their emotions so as not to offend their generals’ equilibrium; it was a marker of how upset Wolffe was that Plo could feel him so clearly.

The pain in his belly was growing. It had seemed every step had inflamed the overburdened tissues further, until the simple act of moving had sent ripples of agony through his body. Plo had spent the majority of the march in waking meditation. It was difficult to focus on one’s own pains when the pains of the twenty-three men around one, and the frost-chilled ache of the vegetation, dispersed it. He had been so deeply buried in the Force that their approach to the meadow had been a shock. A loud shout of Force energy, compelling Plo to return to the fragility of his body and tell Wolffe to investigate.

Whatever was meant to happen here was hidden from Plo’s sight. The Force had sent a shock of emotion through him--borrowed sentiment, echoes from events that hadn’t happened yet. He felt devotion, grief, disgust, horror, pain, and such aching love that his heart cramped at the mere echo of it. Plo Koon was no young man, to be shocked by what the Force could show him; but these borrowed emotions were unnerving. They carried with them no hint of what was to come. Plo reached into the Unifying Force, transcending the corporeal until he was tapped into the underlying principle of All, but there were no visions of what was to come. Only that tangle of emotions, which told him nothing. He released himself back into his body. Below, Wolffe and Shrike had moved to set up the command tent with the help of their brothers. How easily they moved, how fluidly. They stepped into their places with the familiarity of long practice, talking and laughing amongst each other like the brothers they called themselves. A shade of the love Plo had experienced in the foretelling upwelled in him now, casting his balance awry. These men were his charges, his responsibility, and they repaid his care with the most acute loyalty and devotion Plo Koon had ever known. The magnitude of the sentiment closed his throat. In a fit of desperation, he opened himself to the Living Force to release it. _There is no emotion, there is peace_. He let himself dissolve into the flow.

“Sir?”

 _Wolffe_. Plo opened his eyes. Wolffe stood before him, halfway up the rocky berm so he stood a little shorter than Plo’s kneeling height, his helmet in hand, his hair tossed by the wind. Plo let out a small, shaking breath at the sight. He suspected it was the chronic pain that was making him so much less capable of mastering his responses.

“Is the camp ready?”

“Yes, sir. I took the liberty of putting down your bedroll.” Perhaps Plo imagined the flush of color that rose on Wolffe’s cheeks.

Plo let himself return fully to his body. With it came the wash of pain, like a burning ember in the bowl of his pelvis, radiating up his spine. He sighed. His legs were numb, on top of it all. “I’m afraid I need your help,” he said, and hid his wince at Wolffe’s alarm. “Just to stand, I can manage the rest.”

Wolffe came up beside him and gently took his arm. Plo levered himself up, unable to stifle his low groan of pain. Pride was an emotion, too, he reflected wryly, when a thrill of embarrassment arose at his unsteadiness. Wolffe dropped his helmet and brought his other hand up when Plo weaved unsteadily; he made no effort now to mask his concern.

“Is it… is it too late?” The naked fear in Wolffe’s eyes made Plo reach for his hand, so much smaller than his own even in its gauntlets.

“Not yet, Wolffe.”

Wolffe gave a ragged sigh and ducked his head. He nodded. “Let’s get you to your tent, sir.” He went first down the slope, collecting his helmet and looking up at Plo as though afraid he would misstep and fall to his death right then and there. Perhaps he was. Plo was warmed by Wolffe’s concern, but also saddened. His attachment would only hurt him when the inevitable happened. Plo would have to mitigate the trauma while he still could. Perhaps Master Fisto could take command of the 104th; he was an even-handed, fair man, and Wolffe would need his good humor. If Wolffe had time to adjust to the prospect beforehand, perhaps he might not suffer as profoundly as he had after Abregado. Wolffe’s grief after that horrible had changed him; Plo didn't want to contemplate how his own death would affect him. _At least he will have his brothers. Sinker and Boost will look after him_.

That night, the winds picked up again in earnest. Snow fell in little patters against the tent walls. Plo sat in his tent and tried to meditate. His appetite was gone; his body was preparing for the final, fruitless battle against his eggs. He wouldn’t have long. Half a day, at most, before he progressed to the point where only advanced medicine could help, and he would begin to die. He watched the walls of his tent tremble and billow in the wind, rounding out before falling slack.

Wolffe threw back the fly and strode in. His emotions were black and stinging.

“You seem distressed,” Plo said, half lost in the rhythms of the Force.

“You knew,” Wolffe spat. “Somehow you knew there weren’t any animals nearby. The Force told you, fine, I don’t care. Why didn’t you tell _me_?”

Plo turned to look up at his commander, who loomed over him. “You shouldn’t have gone without your helmet.”

“Looks like we’re all acting like fools then, aren’t we, _sir_.”

“There is no need to mask your fear.”

“I’m not afraid!”

“’Fear leads to anger,’” Plo replied. “Why are you angry? Because you are afraid I will die.”

“I’ve about had enough of this Jedi bantha shit!” Wolffe reached down and yanked Plo to his feet. Plo was not a small man; Wolffe’s effort was admirable. The surge of pain kicked Plo back into the material realm, and he gasped, staggering to keep from falling over. Wolffe’s hand vanished.

“General, I--I’m sorry, I should have--“

“It’s quite alright,” Plo said, unable to keep from hunching at the inflamed throb in his belly. The cramp eased, and he straightened. “What I said was insensitive. A peril, I’m afraid, of losing oneself in the Force.”

Wolffe was standing by the rickety camp table, where the holomap of the region hovered. His head was lowered; shame colored his bearing. Plo sighed. “There isn’t any point hiding from the facts,” he said. “It must be said. Wolffe, I _am_ dying. I thought to let you have your innocence, that we might complete the mission. Your scouts were more perceptive than I had accounted for, however. But Wolffe, they _are_ right: there’s nothing here that I can use as a host. And in the absence of a host, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do.”

A shudder ran through Wolffe’s body. He looked up, and his eyes were determined. “You’re wrong, sir. You can use me.”

 

IX. Martyrdom or Infamy

At first, the words had no meaning. They echoed in the hollows of Plo’s shapi’s organs like so much raw noise, harmless in their incomprehensibility. The moment passed, and the words struck Plo like a hammerblow to the chest. His entire being shied from the very thought.

“Absolutely not!”

Wolffe’s eyes went wide. Plo realized he had shouted. He moderated his tone. “I absolutely will not use you or any of your brothers in such a fashion.”

A mulish expression came over his commander’s face. “Why not.”

 _Why not_. A host of reasons sprang to Plo’s mind, each shouting over the other, each more personal and compromising than the last. The easiest one, “Because I said so,” was the one most sure to silence Wolffe. But it was also the one least likely to reassure him, or to allow him to begin letting go. Plo inhaled deeply, and released his shock into the Force.

“Implantation is--” he stopped. Mustered his words. “There are not words strong enough to describe the crime of implantation in a sentient being,” he finally said.

Wolffe said nothing. He simply stood there, a frown creasing his young face.

Plo tried again. “The history of my people forbids it. Their laws forbid it. It’s the very worst kind of sentients’ rights abuse.”

“Laying your eggs is a crime.”

“When they kill the host, yes!”

Wolffe blanched, and Plo checked his tone once more. His control was fragmenting. He calmed himself and steepled his hands before him. “This is something I cannot do, Wolffe. As a Jedi, it is my responsibility to preserve life however I find it. As a Kel Dor, that responsibility extends to include my own reproductive habits. If I cannot find an ethical way to lay my eggs, then I will not lay them. Quite literally, I would rather die.”

It was as sound an argument as Plo could make. That the eggs would _not_ kill Wolffe made little difference; it was the symbolism of the act that mattered, and the unspeakable potential it ascribed to the one who committed it. Plo would not become a monster.

Some paroxysm of emotion overcame Wolffe’s face. His hands clenched and unclenched; the shivers of distress that vibrated through him mangled his Force signature. “You're a Jedi, sir, and a member of the High Council. You can't die, the Republic needs you. I was bred to die if duty demanded it; this is no different than taking a bullet for you on the battlefield.”

Plo’s heart twisted at the mere thought of Wolffe dying. “No. I won’t allow it.”

“So you’re just going to lay down and die!”

“Given the alternative, _yes_.”

“Well, I don’t want you to die!”

Those words hung between them. Plo dropped his hands. Those words… ah, how they spun pleasure from his very soul. “Wolffe,” he said, hating the words even as he said them. “You have to let me go.”

“If this is more of that Jedi ‘attachment’ osik, you can shove it where it hurts, sir.” Wolffe growled. His eyes were growing bright.

“It’s not--” Plo took another deep breath. “Wolffe, when this is over I had thought you might be transferred to the 423rd--”

“You’re _not_ throwing me away like some--some empty cartridge,” Wolffe cut in, stabbing the air between them with his finger. “You’re not dead, and I’m not going to let you kill yourself! Not on my watch!”

“I’m not throwing you away! Master Fisto is a good man--”

“He could be Valenthyne Farfalla, but I still wouldn’t follow him.”

“Commander.” Plo’s voice went hard.

“ _General_.” Wolffe’s voice was just as hard. Plo had never seen him stand up to him like this; if he was honest, he wouldn’t have thought it possible. “You see the difference in rank, sir? You’re a _general_. I’m just a commander. You’re a Jedi. There aren’t many of you, don’t you understand? I’m a decicred a dozen, I don’t matter. But the war can’t afford to lose you.”

“That’s _enough_ , Wolffe,” Plo snapped. “You _do_ matter, I won’t hear you say--”

“Then fucking choose to live, goddamn it!” Wolffe strode over to him, three steps in all; in the space of those three steps, he pried off his breastplate, yanked open his undersuit, and grabbed Plo’s hand, which he pressed against his bare stomach. “ _Live_ ,” he said, his voice breaking on the emotion it held. “Do it, sir. _Please_.”

His skin was impossibly warm. Plo’s breath caught. This close, he could smell, even through his antiox mask, the scent of Wolffe’s sweat. This close, he could see the tears that Wolffe was refusing to let fall. For a heartbeat’s space of time, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing between them.

Plo stood frozen, trapped between his desires. He longed to run as far from Wolffe as he could before death or exhaustion took him. He longed to peel the blacks from Wolffe’s shoulders and show him how worthy he was, one slow touch at a time. He longed--the moment stretched, and his egg bladder spasmed. He longed for what he couldn’t have. He gently pried Wolffe’s hand from his and stepped back.

“No, Wolffe.”

The gutted sound Wolffe made burned him, as scalding as the burn in his belly. He forced himself to turn away. He took each step, one foot in front of the other, and disappeared into the back of the tent, leaving Wolffe standing bereft by the rickety camp table.

 

X. Night Terrors

The wind howled, that night. It seemed always to blow on this gods-forsaken rock, but now it outdid itself. Wolffe clutched his head between his hands and fought to keep from rocking back and forth. Only the presence of Shrike kept his composure intact; he rested his elbows on his knees and stared into the middle distance instead of screaming until his voice gave out.

“Are you alright, brother?”

A hand fell to Wolffe’s shoulder, and he whirled, trapping the enemy’s arm in a joint lock and bringing him to the floor. He stared down at Shrike in confusion.

“Sorry, sir,” Shrike gasped, arching into the pressure to keep from dislocating his elbow.

Not a droid. Not any kind of enemy; instead, a brother, looking up at him with wide, frightened eyes. Wolffe let him go and fled the tent.

He'd stood in the command tent for--he wasn't entirely sure for how long, after General Plo had retreated to his private quarters. He remembered swaying like he was drunk, like General Plo had been the only thing keeping him upright; he remembered hastily wiping away a single, stinging tear. He'd put himself back together and hauled out of the tent like a squad of rollies were on his tail.

Nothing had been right, since. Everything had seemed off-kilter; the regulation perfect lines of the tents skewed dangerously, the movements of his own body alien and stilted. His general had refused his help and was dying. “ _You will protect your Jedi with your own life, if needs must_ ,” the dispassionate voice of his trainer echoed in his mind’s ear. “ _You are a commodity. They are priceless._.” Wolffe had swallowed back the tears until they strangled him.

Overhead, the clouds roiled, spinning and crashing into each other from the interference of the gas giant’s magnetosphere. Wind sliced through the cracks in Wolffe’s armor. He'd forgotten his helmet; he couldn’t turn on the climate controls in his blacks. He shivered as he walked up and down the row of tents. Some of them glowed, despite the late hour. Brothers still awake. Hatchet was probably reading; he was always reading. Cross and Mace were still up, but it was a wise man who chose not to wonder what they were doing. Cobur had probably had another nightmare.

The lights in the command tent were out. Wolffe stood across from it, not entirely certain when he'd gotten there. Around him, the tents bowed and creaked in the wind, the low snap of their fabric like a dozen wings flapping. An especially forceful gust slammed into him, knocking him forward; he stumbled over the trampled-down grass. When he looked up, the command tent loomed above him.

The general’s quarters were separated from the main body of the tent. He wouldn't mind if Wolffe came in out of the wind. Wolffe didn't think about how desperately he needed to be nearby. Had to be, in case he--he died early. Wolffe’s breath hitched. His hands were numb as they pried back the seals on the tent fly.

Inside it was dark, the howling of the wind traded for the frenetic snapping of the tent. Wolffe stood for what felt like hours, replaying the argument. The way General Plo’s breathing had been labored. The way the filtered afternoon light had made the whorls on his forehead seem to glow. The bite of cold air against Wolffe’s chest, and the secret thrill of the general’s hand against his skin. Then the aching pit that had opened up beneath him when the general had turned away. Wolffe’s heart rate picked up and he hurriedly kneeled in the corner, folding on himself as best as his armor would allow. The weight of the plates around him, and the compression of his bodyglove, eased some of the tension. He was safe. He had his armor; he was safe.

There had to be some way to convince the general. Some way to get him to change his mind and choose to live. Wolffe ran through argument after argument, but the General Plo in his mind refuted them all. Maybe if Wolffe tricked him… No. The fear of breaching his ethics had set the general on this path; actually breaching them wouldn't do anyone any favors. Wolffe’s head throbbed. He ground the heel of his palm into his prosthetic eye to relieve the pressure.

A draft snuck in through the fly. Wolffe shivered, goosebumps breaking out over his chest and shoulders. He was an idiot for forgetting his helmet again. A droid scout could have shot him in the head, and then the mission would be truly fucked.

At least if he was killed the general wouldn't be able to leave him behind. Wolffe didn't know if clones had souls, or that if they did they went to the same place as Jedi, but if they both died then he was going to spend eternity cussing General Plo out, even if it’d mean he'd have to bend the fucking universe in half to do it.

Somewhere between one thought and the next, he drifted asleep, held upright by his armor. The wind scoured the glowing plain, eddying over the meadow and shushing through the grass. The Force signatures of all living creatures were damped down, burrowed into hiding from the rushing storm; debris and wind-blown snow drifts hurtled into the air, pattering against the huddle of tents barely protected by the low dell and high grass. It was the only lullaby Wolffe had ever known, who had fallen asleep to the crash of wind and waves; for him, the rattle of dirt and driven snow was no different than blasterfire. He dozed, and he kept his ears open.

For Wolffe it was a lullaby, but for Plo Koon, who had grown to adulthood in the sheltered cloister of the Jedi Temple and for whom combat was a foreign, unwelcome necessity, the noise disturbed his already fitful sleep. Deep within the tissues of his abdomen, protected by a sheath of muscle, his egg bladder sat, tight and hard with mature eggs. The life cycle of a Kel Dor egg was unvaried. It would mature, at which point it would be fertilized or not; after which, its outer coating would harden, and its parent body would no longer recognize it as native tissue. The delicate organ of the bladder was not meant to withstand the hardened eggs for as long as Plo had forced it to; already his immune system was responding: the egg bladder was inflamed, and soon, would become infected. At that point, the eggs would swell with fluid, and together with the irritated, obstructed passages of his egg canal, he would no longer be able to pass them without specialized surgery. Had he been able to reach Dorin in time, he might have had a chance; but with the crash of the gunship, the infection would kill him first.

A stab of raw pain tore Plo Koon awake, and in the vulnerable limbo between waking and sleeping, his shields failed him. He moaned aloud. He had been shot, stabbed, and broken many bones in the performance of his duties; none of it compared to this throbbing mass burning through his pelvic floor. He gasped at the sheer agony of it. His ovipositor was fully extended, but in the absence of a host, no eggs were forthcoming.

In the main room, Wolffe jerked awake. Sounds of distress were as good as a warning klaxon on the battlefield; he was fully aware in seconds, and a heartbeat later he was on his feet, running to the portioned-off back room where General Plo kept his bedroll. The tent wasn't large; but every second it took to reach his general seemed to stretch into infinity.

“Sir,” he said, dropping to his knees at the general’s side. The general was curled in on himself like a tinbug, shaking like a leaf in a cold autumn breeze. “Sir, are you--how can I help?”

“Wolffe?”

“Yes, sir, reporting for duty.” Wolffe felt like his heart was climbing up his throat. It wasn't going to happen so soon, was it? The general had said he'd have at least a few more days. Wolffe found one of the general’s hands and took it with both of his own. “I need a sitrep, sir. Can't send in support if I don't know what's happening.”

“At ease, Commander,” General Plo said, sounding like the words were being drawn from the deepest parts of him. “It's just pain.”

Wolffe choked out a moan. “General, _please_ , let me--”

“I can’t,” came the anguished reply. The general gazed up at him, his grip like iron. “Don't you see? I can't do that to you. I… I care about you more than I should. Better I die than hurt you like that.”

Wolffe couldn't have stopped the tears if he'd tried. His face crumpled. “No,” he said. “ _No_. You can't, sir, because I feel the same way, and I can't watch you die. You _can't_ , do you hear me? I won't allow it.”

The general looked up at him, and Wolffe stared back down, tears trickling down his chin like he was a snot-nosed cadet. What the fuck did his pride matter, if his general wouldn't let him do his duty? Wouldn't let him take this bullet? “Please.” His fingers clenched against the general’s, and he closed his eyes. “ _Please_.”

He hovered in that hell of impending loss for an eternity before General Plo’s breath shuddered out. “It seems that in my efforts to keep from hurting you, I have only hurt you worse.” He broke Wolffe’s grip to brush against Wolffe’s cheek. “If you wish for me to implant in you, then I will.” He dropped his hand, turned his face away, and said no more.

Just like that, Wolffe’s universe righted itself. New energy flooded his veins, and a new goal set in place. He sagged in relief; he didn't let it last long. “What do we need, sir?”

General Plo’s voice was quiet. “Your medkit, and bring over my utility belt, also. You’ll need to take off your armor. And… I need you to help me up.”

For the second time in two days, Wolffe found himself stripping away his armor with trembling hands, General Plo prostrate in the bedroll before him. He dashed away his tears and concentrated on prying loose the plackart from his cuirass. “All the armor, or just the abdominal plates?”

“All of it. You won't be in any condition to move afterwards, so you’ll be spending the night here.”

Wolffe’s hands fumbled on the magclamps holding down his shoulder bells. “But--your bedroll--”

“I won't need it.” His voice brooked no argument.

“Yes, sir.”

He stacked the plates in the corner one by one, until he was dressed only in his blacks. General Plo had eased himself up onto his elbow. “If you would help me the rest of the way, I want every bit of help that gravity can give me.”

Wolffe hurried to help. General Plo was wearing his undertunic, draped loose over his powerful form; Wolffe felt himself blushing like a fool at the warmth and firm muscle he felt beneath. Thank the Force for the darkness. “Is it going to be that difficult, sir?”

“It might be. I'm not certain.”

Helping him up was more easily said than done. Plo Koon was a large man, larger and heavier than Wolffe by a fair margin, unusually so for a pilot. He was dense with muscle, and heavy. When Wolffe hauled him upright, as gently as he could, he let out a wheezing grunt of pain; and when Wolffe, biting his lip until it nearly bled, helped him up to his knees, his every breath was a ragged gasp.

Everything that made Wolffe who he was screamed at him to fix this. To help his general however he could, no matter what it took. That he would, _soon_ , made no difference; Wolffe’s instincts cried _now_. He got on his knees to face General Plo.

“What’s next?”

The general’s lenses turned his eyes into dark pits in his face. He tilted his head. “The lamp, please.”

Wolffe obeyed, flicking on the camp light in the corner. It cast the room in a soft glow. At once the general’s eyes transformed from ominous to familiar; his visage, from threat to friend

“I need access to your stomach,” the general said, more quiet and subdued than Wolffe had ever heard him. “And it might be easier if you were laying down.”

“Yes, sir.” Wolffe's fingers slipped on the seals to his blacks. Gusts of wind slipped in beneath the edges of the tent, chilling his skin and raising gooseflesh; his nipples stiffened and he shivered. He set aside his top with trembling hands before laying back on the general’s bedroll. It smelled the way he did, dark and spicy, like the oil he used to keep his skin supple in an oxygen atmosphere. The general sat back on his knees and watched.

“Will it be alright if I straddle you?” he asked, and Wolffe flushed hot. He cleared his throat.

“Yes sir.”

“Then I’ll need your help. With. With getting a leg over.”

His gaze was fixed on the wall behind Wolffe, his hands clenched over his knees. Wolffe didn't care for the position either--rather, he enjoyed the thought of it more than he should--but staring at the wall wouldn't get things over with any quicker. Sometimes, he suspected the Jedi were more foolish than they needed to be. “The sooner the better, sir,” he said, half sitting up. He put his hand on the general’s shoulder. “Brace against me. I’ll keep you from falling.” He figured this couldn't be any more awkward than his first fumblings as a cadet, when he'd learned what _else_ his cock was for. He met the general’s gaze as well as he could through the lenses.

“You deserve better than this,” his general said.

Wolffe shrugged. “It's lightyears better than getting shot, sir.”

General Plo made a noise between an irritated huff and a groan, but he obediently eased himself over Wolffe’s legs. “That is a poor standard to live by.”

“That's the life of a clone.”

“It's a poor life.”

The general got like this every now and then, pushing strange Jedi morals into spaces not designed to accommodate them. Wolffe wasn't sure what he wanted him to say; it wasn't his fault the Jedi had commissioned them for the purpose they had. He was relieved that General Plo was concerned for their well-being, at least. He kept quiet and laid back down on the blankets.

“Good to go, sir?”

“Almost.”

He fumbled for the medkits. Bacta swabs spilled out from between his trembling fingers; Wolffe picked one up and handed it to him. “You’re doing fine, sir.” The general gave him a look he couldn't parse, and Wolffe had the feeling he'd be looking very unhappy if Wolffe could see his face. He took the swab. He hesitated for a moment after tearing it open, hovering over the skin of Wolffe’s stomach, before touching it between his belly button and the faded line of his appendix scar.

The hair rose on the back of Wolffe’s neck, and he gave a soft inhale. It was cold, so cold in the drafty air, and his skin twitched at the scrape of the general’s ritual claw. He felt himself growing hard, of all things. He didn't know if it was the cold, his nerves, or the heavy weight of the general over his thighs. He was hyperaware of everything about the general, from his uneven breathing, to the spread of his shoulders, to how gentle he was, spreading the bacta in an expanding spiral until there was a shiny, algae-smelling patch on Wolffe’s stomach about the size of a conc grenade. General Plo laid the swab aside.

He said, “On Kel Dor, we make sure the ten-da is sedated for this.” He placed a hand on Wolffe’s shoulder. “I don't have the focus right now to numb your pain with the Force.”

“All the more reason for you to heal up, sir,” Wolffe said. He swallowed and rested his own hand on the general’s thigh. “I’m ready.”

XI. The Point of No Return

About as thick around as a stylus, the most notable feature of the ovipositor of a Kel Dor is its razor-sharp tip, in essence a beveled, large-bore needle for cutting into flesh and lined with smooth muscle through which eggs and enzyme secretions may pass. This structure, deceptive in its fragility, was the source of so much suffering in Dorin history. Plo Koon’s hands shook as he loosened his trousers. He wasn’t sure if the nausea twisting his stomach was from pain or revulsion.

“That’s not half as big as I was thinking,” Wolffe said, bringing up a hand to touch. Plo caught his wrist in an iron grip.

“Please, don’t.” He didn’t want to think about that slender, wicked organ more than he had to; for Wolffe to touch it--Force forfend, to _stroke_ it, as a Human might the genitals of another--the very thought was intolerable.

Wolffe subsided, looking up at Plo, one eye dark, the other ghostly pale in the light of the lantern. He looked like some illicit fantasy: reclined half-naked in Plo’s bed, looking up at him with absolute trust. How far reality fell short. This was no moment to cherish; this was an act of violation, and Wolffe’s willingness did nothing to alleviate it. Plo rested his hand on Wolffe’s hip and lowered the tip of his ovipositor to Wolffe’s skin.

Plo had done this a handful of times in his life. Nothing compared to the initial puncturing. It was not a sexual feeling; it was deeper, subtler. His world narrowed to the warmth enfolding his ovipositor, flooding his belly, banishing a cold from his flesh he hadn’t even realized he felt. Sympathetic tingles rose in the soles of feet and up his spine. There was a certain crass line of thought that the animal instincts which overcame a Kel Dor during implantation were akin to those of a rosh swimming upstream to spawn: they burrowed into the host animal in order to return to their larval stage of warmth and easy abundance. Plo would have pressed further, blindly reveling in the loosening of his egg bladder and mindless to all else, but the small, Human hand on his thigh squeezed painfully, and he returned to himself.

Wolffe’s eyes were closed, his jaw clenched, his breath coming fast and short. Sweat stood on his brow. He made no sound, despite the slow impalement he had just endured; the accidental squeeze of his hand was the only protest he made. Plo’s head cleared in an instant. He could do nothing for the physical pleasure filling his groin, but he was sick to tears with himself.

“Talk to me, Wolffe,” he said, running his hand up Wolffe’s other side.

“Not even a mosquito bite,” Wolffe replied, his voice strained. “Have you started?”

“I am inside you, yes.”

“I meant the eggs.”

“Almost. It takes a moment, I’m afraid. My body has to collect chemical information from yours. It should stop hurting as soon as the eggs descend.” He hoped, for Wolffe’s sake.

Wolffe opened his eyes. They were dilated; both his hands, the one on Plo’s thigh and the one on Plo’s arm, were shaking. An adrenaline response. “They could hurry up, I wouldn’t mind.”

“I will try,” Plo replied. He experimentally bore down on his egg bladder; the answering cramp made him bodily wince, but with a slow, liquid loosening, he felt them begin to descend. He couldn’t help the shuddery groan he made. The release of pressure was immediate and exquisite. “Here they come.”

First Wolffe sagged, as the analgesics took effect; then he tensed once more, as the first eggs entered his abdomen. He craned his head to look down at the juncture of their bodies.

“That feels damn strange.”

Plo wanted nothing more than to throw himself out an airlock into hard vacuum. “How do you mean?”

“I can feel them going in. Not coming _out_ , but I feel them through your kad, like ball bearings in a tube.” He settled back, looking up at Plo. “How many do you think you’ll lay?”

“The average is a hundred to a clutch.”

“A hundred!”

“Rarely more than nine or ten survive to pupate. Larvae eat the failed eggs before they eat the host.”

Wolffe swallowed. “That’s still a lot.”

“Kel Dor reproduce slowly; it makes sense for our clutches to be--to be large, oh Force--” Plo braced himself up on arms gone limp with relief.

“Sir?”

“I’m fine,” he answered. “In truth, this time.” He sighed, endorphins flooding his system. The burning pain of his egg bladder eased. Blessedly, he was almost finished. “And you, Wolffe? How you are you feeling?”

“Me? I could take on all the clankers this rock has to offer.”

It was a beautiful piece of bravado. The Force told a different story, however. Wolffe might not be able to feel the pain of implantation any longer, but his body was well aware that a grave insult was being committed upon it. Lymph was flooding his abdominal cavity along with blood and eggs, and running aground of the antibodies Plo’s body secreted. White blood cells died in the millions; inflammation slowly took their place. Over the next few days, the antibodies Plo’s body introduced would suppress Wolffe’s immune system, and the eggs would harmlessly resorb. In the meantime, Wolffe had gone pale, and his heart rate was elevated. Early signs of shock.

“It’s almost over,” Plo whispered, his voice throttled by shame.

“Aw, it was just getting good.”

“Your sense of humor could use improvement.”

“You’d--you’d miss it, sir.” He grimaced and swallowed. “I keep you on your toes.”

“That is without doubt.”

The final minutes (the entire event took little more than five) were restless. The eggs came slower as the pressure eased, helped along only by the peristalsis action of his egg bladder and ovipositor. Wolffe tapped out a rhythm on Plo’s thigh. Already his color looked better, his shock negated by Plo’s antibodies. “We’ll have to send out scouts to the droid base tomorrow,” he said.

Plo raised his brows. “ _You_ will stay _here_ ,” he said. “I will take care of the scouts.”

Wolffe scowled up at him. “You don't need to coddle me--”

“On the contrary,” Plo said. “You have just experienced the equivalent of invasive abdominal surgery.” He ran his thumb over the silvery appendectomy scar. “You need recovery time.”

“Oh, for--” Wolffe flopped his arm out over the bedroll. He looked down at the organic catheter piercing a hole in his abdomen. He sighed and dropped back down. “I’m _not_ just going to lay in here doing nothing.”

“I have a backlog of paperwork, if you feel you must keep occupied.”

“ _Thank_ you.”

Plo’s ovipositor withdrew without warning, drawing a gasp from Wolffe and a sigh from Plo. He took hold of it before it could retreat into his body and wiped it off with one of the bacta swabs still scattered over the bedroll. Wolffe pushed himself up on his elbows; a trickle of blood ran from the hole.

“Lie back down!” Plo barked, pressing on Wolffe’s shoulder. Wolffe went, his eyes wide.

“Sorry, sir. Is it bad for the eggs?”

“It’s bad for _you_ ,” Plo said. “You’re in mild shock, and moreover I haven’t tended the wound.” This he attended to immediately, wiping away the blood with a bacta swab and over the miniscule hole with another. He glued the wound shut, then laid a bandage over it. Wolffe watched all with a quiet expression. When Plo was done, he laid a hand over his stomach.

“I don’t feel any different.”

“I imagine you can thank the analgesics for that.”

“Heh. Probably.” He rubbed his hand up and down the ripples of his abdominal muscles, a wistful look on his face. He looked up to Plo. “So, uh.” He cleared his throat. “How long will I have, sir?”

Plo sat back on his heels, a chill running down his spine. “For what?”

“Until they hatch.”

The air fled Plo’s lungs. He stared at Wolffe, struck dumb with horror. He braced his hands on his knees and hung his head. “Oh, Force.”

“We’ll still have to get to Dorin,” Wolffe rushed on. “For when they--” He hesitated, his hand stilling over his stomach. “This atmosphere would kill them, won't it?”

“Wolffe--”

“I was thinking we could rig up a sleeping pod, pump it full of Dorin gas. And I'll--I'll probably want to be sedated for that, but suffocation in your sleep isn’t a bad way to go.”

“You won’t die, Wolffe!”

He looked stricken. “You mean I have to be awake for it?” He glanced down at the bandage next to his belly button and an expression grim determination settled over his face. “If it means your children survive, sir.”

Plo was utterly beside himself. Words escaped him; his shock and self-disgust drove them away. He reached for Wolffe’s hand, but it wasn’t nearly enough. “The eggs are infertile,” he finally said. “They won’t hatch.”

Wolffe stared up at him, uncomprehending. “What--what do you mean?”

“It means you won’t die, Wolffe. There’s no need to go to Dorin. There’s no need to rig up any sleeping pod. Your body will resorb the eggs and we can forget this ever happened.”

“I’m going to live?”

“ _Yes_. Force save me, Wolffe, I will never forgive myself for letting you think otherwise.”

Plo had expected Wolffe to rejoice at the news, insofar as his stoic commander could permit himself to. Instead, Wolffe looked away, a gray pall staining his Force signature.

“Wolffe, what is it?”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I’m thankful, sir, don’t get me wrong, but.” He shook his head. “I kind of liked the thought that there’d be little Plo Koons running around. I--I wouldn’t have minded dying for that.” He shrugged awkwardly, and he gave a half-smile that tore at Plo’s insides. “I’m sterile, anyway. They’d have been the closest thing to kids I’ll ever have.”

Oh, gross injustice. Plo was bent in half by the weight of his own shame, but it was painful, cramping love that brought him to rest his forehead against Wolffe’s. “I will spend my life’s work convincing you that your lives are worthy, if that’s what it takes. Wolffe, I would never choose to have children if the cost was your life. _Never_.”

A tremendous change came over Wolffe as Plo said this. He raised a shaking hand to the back of Plo’s head, as though uncertain of the right; his eyes, so dear to Plo, were gutted with emotion. “I’d have done it anyway, sir. Gladly.”

Something shifted in the Force between them, something lingering and sweet, like the resolution of a perfect chord. Plo was certain that, in that instant of time, he and Wolffe were aligned in all ways, as the frequencies of two different pendulums, swinging as one before the inevitability of time drew them back to their native paths. Then it passed, and they were once more in his tent on a desert planet, shivering from cold and the exhaustion of spent emotion. Plo sighed and pulled away from Wolffe. “Sleep, commander. You have a lot of paperwork to do tomorrow.”

Wolffe made a face, but he made no effort to disagree. “Yes, sir.”

Plo drew the covers up, and Wolffe burrowed into their warmth. He fell fast. In a few short moments, his Force signature had smoothed into the easy rhythms of sleep. Plo watched him, unable to tear his eyes away. His commander rarely slept so easily; his trust in Plo--or his exhaustion--must have been profound. Plo reached for the Force, but it eluded his grasp; Wolffe’s hair was mussed. Wolffe, like many of his brothers, kept his hair regulation short--but a few stray curls stuck out against Plo’s bedroll, defying the ruthless order Wolffe demanded of them. Plo had never touched Human hair before. Before he could second-guess himself, he reached out and brushed a hand through Wolffe’s hair, smoothing the wayward curls down. It was softer than it appeared, warm from Wolffe’s body. Plo yanked his hand away. He settled into a meditation stance out of arm’s reach.

These men would be the death of him, he was sure of it. Their innocence and cynicism, their unwavering devotion to duty, their willingness to sacrifice themselves for others, the fundamentally gentle nature of their souls beneath the layers of training and indoctrination--and all of it distilled in the person of Wolffe, for better or worse. It was more than Plo could handle; more than a Jedi should. He contemplated the matter until the shadows of night faded into the gray light of dawn, keeping watch as his commander slept.

XII. The Soul Regards the Cost of its Reprieve

In the end, Wolffe did very little paperwork. Worn by the toils of his immune system and the blossoming ache in his gut, he spent the larger portion of the next day asleep, the general’s datapad slipping out of his lax fingers.

His conscience was quiet. There was only one purpose for a clone, and that was the fulfillment of his duty. Allowing his general to lay his eggs beside his intestines was probably very far from his designers’ intent, but the spirit was the same: to sacrifice his life so that others might live. The only disquiet that marred his sleep was the shade of regretful longing.

Wolffe fought for the Republic. But if he was honest, “The Republic” had always been an abstract ideal. When he was younger that had been enough; he'd thought himself capable of living solely on dreams and the fairytale of just governance. War had shown him differently. It had drained a foolish boy’s nanïveté as surely as it bled the galaxy dry of bacta and tibanna gas. There were times now that Wolffe caught himself wondering, on the worst nights, when his eye ached or when he longed for the touch of his brothers but couldn't make himself brave the barracks, whether “The Republic,” a nebulous entity he'd never met and which didn't seem to acknowledge his or his brothers' existence even as they died for it, was worth the blood they shed.

But his general was real. General Plo knew his men and grieved when they died. He remembered them. He thanked them. He fought for them on fields they could not trespass. The Republic might not even exist, as far as Wolffe was concerned; but General Plo Koon was more than enough. Wolffe would have gladly laid down his life for him, and he would have done the same for his children. He couldn’t have hoped for a better end. That there would be no children… he sighed and listened to his brothers’ comms chatter. It was time to lay that dream to rest alongside all the rest of them. He slept, and he healed.

Matters did not settle themselves so easily in Plo Koon’s heart. He conferred with the scout teams Shrike and Hector had deployed, discussed strategy with Admiral Gyatso, and reassured Mint and Piston that he in no way held them responsible for the ill-fated landing of their gunship. All the while he waded soul-deep through a mire of guilt, disgust, and self-reproach.

How was a Jedi to reconcile his inability to abstain from attachment with his vows? How was a Kel Dor to reconcile breaking the greatest taboo of his species with his own will to live? Plo was not rational when it came to Wolffe. Clear, calm thought was the ideal for a Jedi, and Plo had not only disregarded it, he had utterly forgotten it. Did his word come so cheaply that he would break a vow without thinking twice? _There is no passion, there is serenity_. He had, in the space of twenty-three hours, systematically broken every rule his upbringing had taught him, and worst of all, he would make every decision again.

Even those actions which condemned him a monster in Dorin law. He had spent the night in meditation at Wolffe’s side, contemplating his crime. Shades of gray of course existed between cultures on Dorin. Some considered the implantation of infertile eggs between a paired couple to be the highest form of intimacy; this was permitted among the ethnic groups in which it had arisen. Certain tribes believed that the chief should receive all the eggs of his tribe, the better to hold their spirits and protect them. Sometimes, as in his own case, it was either die or submit to villainy. It was possible that he would be granted a legal reprieve--but were he to admit to his crime, no matter the ruling, he would be ostracized. “This man has forced another sentient beneath him,” they would say. “He has threatened the lives of two handfuls plus one.”

He couldn't bring himself to care. He would choose the same path again. He was alive and pain-free, and Wolffe’s Force signature was rebounding each hour.

In the play of morality against sentiment, he had no clear answers. The only thing which he could control was how he would respond to subsequent events, and despite his conscience, Plo accepted this resolution with a relieved heart. Come what may, that crisis was past. He had a different one to concern himself with, now.

When Captain Shrike entered the command tent for the pre-mission briefing, the very last thing he expected was to see Commander Wolffe easing himself down at the table with the stone-faced stoicism of the moderately wounded. Shrike had never seen his commander sit  
when he could stand; he had never seen him take so ill during a mission that he couldn't push through it. It was a running joke in the battalion that Wolffe had taken an inoculation against the common cold.

Shrike wasn't as familiar with Wolffe or the general as some of the older brothers. Wolffe especially was a private sort, unusually for a clone--but then, they made the CCs a little different from the CTs. A little better able to handle the stresses of flying solo, closer to the earlier generation ARCs. Point was, he wasn't exactly Wolffe’s bunkmate, but even he could see that something was going on between him and General Plo.

First the general wandered off into a storm, turning the commander as snappish and overprotective as an anooba over her cubs. Then the way the general had tried--and mostly failed--to hide his pain during the march, with Wolffe trying--and mostly failing--not to hover by his side.

And last night. A hand-shaped ring of bruises circled Shrike’s wrist. Wolffe had been--Shrike didn't know how to describe the condition in which he'd found his commander the day before. Wretched, was one word. His armor had been askew, his eyes wild. His conduct had been otherwise impeccable, but to a clone, for whom the minutest shift in appearance signified volumes, to see Wolffe, whose armor was impeccably tended at all times, in such a state was akin to seeing High General Windu streak past the GAR HQ buck naked.

That wasn't including the events after dark, when it had seemed like all of Wolffe’s nightmares had swamped him at once.

And now, he moved like he was two days off the worst battle in all the GAR. When Shrike had reported Wolffe’s absence that morning, General Plo had told him that Wolffe was recovering in the command tent after a bout of illness.

 _A bout of illness_. This looked more like the commander had been gutshot.

The meeting commenced. It was simple stuff; the base was minimally protected, having relied more on the interference of the gas giant’s magnetosphere for cover than the protection of a large garrison. The operation would be a breeze. That wasn't what worried Shrike.

He saw the way Wolffe’s eyes followed the general’s hands rather than the targets he pointed out. He noticed the way the general’s attention was arrested every time Wolffe sighed, winced, or even shifted in his seat. Shrike shared loaded glances with his brothers. The general and the commander were so wrapped up in each other they didn't even notice how obvious they were. If they were all lucky, it wouldn't fuck up the mission any more than it already had.

XIII. Mission Objective Obtained

Hidden by the morning mist, appearing then disappearing like revenants, like the harbingers of sorrow on Malastare who lurk in the fog and wail of deaths to come, the Wolfpack approached the relay station. Their footsteps fell without notice. Their lifesigns, which would have otherwise been noted by base scanners, were deflected and distorted by the same phenomena that prevented orbital scanning; they appeared as a pack of small carnivores, or a flock of birds patrolling. No alarms sounded. The very trait that made droids affordable was their failing: they had no instincts or emotions to depend upon, and as these were new models, no experience to tell them when a flock of birds was in fact a platoon of clones.

Plo Koon led the way, deep in waking meditation; it was he who manipulated the thermal principles of the earth and air to thicken the mist, providing cover for his men. He held the hilt of his lightsaber, but kept it unlit. It was not a stealthy weapon. For that, he had the Force. Ten men arrayed around him in a vee formation, spread to cover ground and minimize themselves as a target. They had spent the night circling the installation to get in position for the assault: a two-pronged pincer, with the base caught between. On the other side, Wolffe waited. Plo deflected thoughts of his commander; they were a distraction.

“Are you sure?” Plo had asked that morning.

Wolffe’s expression had been determined, his Force signature serene. “Do it, sir.”

In the dim light of the camp lantern, Plo had wrapped Wolffe’s stomach, rolling layers of bandages around his body to support his weakened abdominal wall. Such an innocent gesture of trust it had seemed; but he had brushed against the smooth velvet of Wolffe’s skin, so warm it almost seemed to burn Plo’s cold-bitten fingers, and a matched heat built in his own belly. Wolffe’s body was so powerful, so graceful, but still so fragile. Plo helped him into his undersuit and then his armor, affixing each piece one by one, watching his brown skin disappear beneath black and white and gray, the very picture of martial prowess, and at the end Plo hadn't been able to stop himself from cupping Wolffe’s cheek, a wordless expression of every ounce of worry and love he felt.

Wolffe turned his face to nuzzle against Plo’s palm. “I can do this, sir. I was bred to.”

Those words, so clearly meant to reassure, only made Plo’s worries grow. What damage might Wolffe conceal in the name of performing his duty?

Such thoughts had no place on a battlefield. Plo gestured to his men, pointing them toward the weak points they had identified during reconnaissance. All comms channels were silent, to limit detection; they moved as one nevertheless. They fitted mini mines in the doorways; they loosed grapples to the roofline. A team circled to the hangar bay doors, solid durasteel, blast-proof. A vent high above would prove their point of ingress.

“Now,” Plo said, and chaos erupted.

“Rapid entry” is what his troops called it, laughing amongst themselves. Precisely choreographed explosions and bursts of suppressive fire, taking out key targets and claiming territory before the enemy could retaliate. By the time the droids mustered, the clones had already destroyed the comms array and the hangar doors. From thence, it was a quick, ugly battle for dominance, blaster bolts flying thick through the halls. Here, Plo Koon showed why he was counted among the greatest fighters. He cut a swathe through the droids, deflecting bolts into the ceiling and walls and, when a bolt angled just so, back into their owners. He was cold fury, a force of nature controlled and set loose upon his foes. Wolffe watched him and the sight aroused sentiments that were beyond his capacity to verbalize. It was natural for a clone to admire competence; it was their highest virtue. Wolffe looked upon Plo Koon and his admiration was too great for his frail flesh to contain.

The base held a complement of sixteen Separatist droids. In a matter of minutes they were nothing but piles of scrap. Explosives were placed and timed; the clones’ egress was as swift and expeditious as their entry. Plo guarded their rear while Wolffe led the way, his deecees out. If he was in pain, he gave no sign; Plo was too distant, and too focused on protecting his men, to notice further. He shepherded his men onto the shuttle and dragged Plo on after.

“It’s bare bones, sir, but it’ll do,” Piston said from the cockpit, where he and Mint were racing through the pre-flight sequence. “No life support to speak of, but it's air-tight.”

“That is all we need,” Plo said. “Seal your helmets, all of you.”

They were off in a burst of ions and afterburners. Their initial flight was uneven as they rode the thermals; the white-and-dun tundra of Pachys XII spread out before them. Already the mist was blowing away, revealing black shoals of rock that broke through the sod. Then the clouds descended, and the world disappeared.

“Strap yourselves in,” Plo said, his voice deep and grim.

“What about you, sir?”

“Don't worry, Commander.” He raised his arms. “The Force is my ally.”

The wind hit them like a solid wall. Every man staggered, stumbling back amidst the racks that held deactivated droids; Plo alone stood tall behind the pilots, his arms raised as though bracing himself against some unseen adversary. Their passage steadied. The roar of the wind sank away.

Wolffe held on to the central support beam for the droid racks, his abdomen filled with a dull aching throb as the drugs wore off, and he could not look away. General Plo seemed to fill the viewscreen, backlit by the clouds beyond. There was nothing in the world but General Plo and the clouds, and the wind that tried to tear their tiny ship apart.

Finally, they broke through. The winds ceased. Silence fell. They hovered over an ocean of white, the planetary curvature visible on the horizon; above, the sky shaded to a rich, saturated blue, and the the striped purple bulk of the gas giant overlooked all. Time itself seemed not to trespass upon that hallowed, liminal space. Yet still they rose, their tiny ship a fleck of black marring the vista of the clouds, until blue was encompassed by black and the stars winked into being. In the distance, the _Courageous_ gleamed red and white in the sun.

They were home.

XIV. Aftermath

Plo didn't see Wolffe until after he had been released by the medics. He’d had an easily-regenerated case of frostbite and receding inflammation in his lower pelvic organs. Plo endured it with patience, cracking wry to soothe the nerves of the medic, who was new. His name was Graft. Plo committed it to memory.

Standard procedure after any field exercise, no matter how minor, was a physical. There were different policies in different units, but after the incident on Kuat, Wolffe had made it mandatory for all 104th personnel to prove to a medic that they weren't hiding a slow abdominal bleed. In the chaos of debarking the Separatist shuttle, Plo lost track of Wolffe; and in the mire of conflicting orders and insistent medics, he lost track of him.

In truth, he couldn't decide whether to be glad or worried that Wolffe had disappeared. Undoubtedly it was to hide his peculiar condition, which would show up on even the most basic scans; for that, Plo was grateful. The lingering shame of his actions had not diminished with time. But if, say, Wolffe were suffering from a slow abdominal bleed, it would pass by unmarked, and untreated.

Wolffe was nowhere to be found. He was not in the medbay, nor the hangar, nor the mess. The clone grapevine preceded Plo, skipping ahead via helmet comms.

“He's not here, sir,” Amp said as soon as he stepped foot in the primary training salle. “I heard he might be in the mess.”

Plo had just come from the mess. Wolffe had definitively not been present. “Thank you, lieutenant,” was all he said in reply.

If Wolffe wasn't in any of the public places on the ship, then it stood to reason he was in a private place, and the only private places clones were permitted were in officer country. Plo made his way up the conning tower to Wolffe’s quarters.

“Looks like you found me, sir,” Wolffe said when Plo overrode the security protocols on his door. His quarters weren't much to speak of--space was limited on a starship, when seven thousand people, clone and natural-born alike, were forced into close proximity--little more than a bunk, a desk, and an armor rack, with a closet-sized ‘fresher squeezed in the corner. Wolffe was stretched out on his bed, gray-faced and sunken-eyed with exhaustion. Plo’s heart stopped.

“Are you alright?” he asked, kneeling beside Wolffe’s bunk.

Wolffe chuckled. “Thought that was my line.” He sighed when Plo didn't meet the joke halfway. “I'm fine, sir. Just the comedown from the uppers I took.”

Military-grade amphetamines were standard issue throughout the GAR, to aid in long-running missions or to minimize pain for short periods. Their abuse was becoming somewhat of a problem, as were the various methods the men used to come back down. Plo tried to be understanding where he could--his troops were under a great deal of stress, and had few reprieves from the grinding misery of war. The 104th was better off than many forward operating units, by virtue of the fact that they tended to be held in reserve for special ops. Their value was not in their use as cannon fodder, but in their handling of logistics.

Nevertheless, Plo’s pulse began to race. He had seen too many overdoses by desperate shinies to be comfortable with their use.

“Is this why you skipped your physical?”

“Nah, Blast was the one who issued me the prescription. I skipped it because--well, I figured you didn't want your dirty laundry aired, sir. There's enough talk as it is.”

Plo came inside and kneeled by Wolffe’s side. “I haven’t thanked you for what you did for me,” he said.

“There’s no need for thanks, sir,” came Wolffe’s prompt, uncomfortable reply. Very few clones liked praise, Plo had noticed. Invariably they waved it off, or somehow minimized it, and grew quiet and embarrassed when the point was pressed.

“Thanks are always needed,” Plo said firmly. “You saved my life, Wolffe, in a manner above and beyond the call of duty. For that, I sincerely thank you.”

“Ah. Well. You’re welcome, sir. Anytime.” Wolffe’s gaze was fixed on a point over Plo’s shoulder, a faint blush over his cheeks.

“If there is anything I can do in return for you, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Inexplicably, Wolffe’s blush seemed to deepen. “There’s--there’s nothing. Sir. I’ve got all I need.”

There was a ripple in Wolffe’s Force signature, one Plo had felt just before he had implanted. He placed a hand on Wolffe’s arm. “Are you sure? You’re not hiding anything the way you’re hiding from the medics?”

Wolffe’s heart rate increased beneath Plo’s fingers. He felt it in the brachial vein over Wolffe’s bicep: a sharp uptick in tempo. Wolffe was breathing faster, too, and his cheeks were stained red.

“It’s nothing, sir,” he said in a shaky voice.

Plo could sense that this was embarrassment, not true distress. But there were dark swirls of pain curling through Wolffe’s body, and something else equally dark, but of a different bent. The deeper parts of Plo’s brain responded, for all that he kept himself from thinking it. “Wolffe,” he said, his voice deeper than he meant it to be. “Let’s not have secrets between us. It doesn’t seem to end well.”

He had been striving for a wry tone, poking gentle fun at himself to set Wolffe at his ease and open up, but if anything Wolffe grew more tense. “This isn’t that kind of thing, sir,” he said awkwardly. “I can managed it on my own.”

There was a particular way Wolffe’s brow furrowed when he was lying. Plo wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so adept at reading his commander, but time had certainly proved the skill. He carefully ran through the data he’d collected about the situation.

Something embarrassing, but not life-threatening. Something which Wolffe could normally handle on his own. Something which resulted in increased heart rate and flush, and which seemed interrupted by his pain. Plo let out a slow breath.

“If you permit me,” he said, “I can block your pain.”

Wolffe went still. “I thought you had to touch me to do that.”

“I do.”

“Respectfully, sir, I don’t think helping me rub one out is the best use of a Jedi’s abilities.”

A wash of arousal left Plo off-balance. His or Wolffe’s, he wasn’t sure. “It is your decision,” he replied. “But you helped me. Now, I would like to help you.”

“It’s not the same, sir.”

“That may be, but I still wish to help.”

Wolffe’s eyes were dark when he finally met Plo’s eyes. They stared at each other for a moment, each taking the other’s measure. “Okay,” Wolffe finally said, nearly in a whisper. He closed his eyes and he shuddered lightly. Plo wondered how he could have missed the signs coming into his quarters. He reached across Wolffe’s chest and rested his hand against his temple. A twist of the Force, and Wolffe relaxed with a gusting sigh.

“That’s almost as good as finishing,” he said, heavy-lidded.

“Are you sure you don’t need to see the medics?”

“There’s nothing they can give me except downers, and I don’t like the way those make me dream.”

He lay there for a while, soaking in the feeling of being pain-free, then abruptly sat up, his hands moving feverishly at the collar of his blacks. He stripped off the top with the speed of desperation and long practice, then tore at the sweat-stained bandages wrapping his torso. A small stain over the implantation site had developed, one that grew the closer he got to bare skin; Plo kept his hand to Wolffe’s temple and fought back guilt. Even in the harsh light of his quarters Wolffe was a beautiful man, and seeing him take off his clothes for such charged act left Plo breathless. When Wolffe was bare but for his trousers and the bacta patch over his stomach, he laid back down on the bunk. He stared up at Plo. “Sorry you have to see this,” he said.

“You have seen far worse of me than I have of you,” Plo replied. He arranged himself so he was facing opposite Wolffe. The action, as it were, would take place behind his back; all he could see without craning to look was Wolffe’s face. “Will this suffice?”

“Yes, sir.”

Had you told Plo a week earlier than he would be kneeling by his commander’s side as said commander masturbated, he would have chuckled, wryly deflected, and repressing a surge of want. Even now, despite the reality of Wolffe’s sweaty, pheromone-rich scent filling his nose, he couldn't quite make himself believe it.

He kept it as chaste as he could. This was an intimate moment that belonged to Wolffe alone; that he had been invited at all was product of his own insistence. He kept his gaze forward, not looking to Wolffe’s face and _certainly_ not looking to the furtive movement behind. Sound tormented him all the same. The soft slide of skin against skin, yes, but also the quiet panting of Wolffe’s breath, and Plo’s own breathing, deafening in the confines of his mask. There was as well, Force save him, the exquisite torture of touch. He touched only Wolffe’s temple, but the movement of Wolffe’s hand propagated up his arm, and Plo moved with his rhythm. The heat of his bare chest seemed to radiate upwards; leftovers of his artificially heightened metabolism haunted Plo even through the protection of his robes.

Plo’s world sharpened and narrowed as Wolffe made a sound. Just a sharp inhale, small and riding the edge of his voice. Plo mastered himself. He tried. But that single sound, that half gasp of pleasure, echoed in his shapi’s organs until it seemed a physical connection between them. Flickers of images spilled from Wolffe’s mind, half-formed fantasies congealing and breaking apart. Plo caught a distinct thought: _gotta clean my armor_ , before he firmly removed himself from Wolffe’s thoughts and bolstered his shields. Other shapes had left their imprint on Wolffe’s mind, tall and broad-shouldered, wielding lightsabers like an extension of their arms. They left a stunned, trembling blaze in Plo’s chest, but it was not his place to pry. But he looked to Wolffe out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t not.

Wolffe’s eyes were closed, his face intent, his cheeks flushed. He was turned slightly away, to gain what privacy he could; that this turned his face further into Plo’s palm seemed accident rather than artifice, but the picture nevertheless set Plo’s heart racing. The soft puffs of Wolffe’s breath against his skin were intoxicating.

Wolffe paused and shifted his grip. The burst of pleasure that arose twanged through the Force, and Plo wasn't sure whether it was his hips or Wolffe’s that rocked up to meet it. The faint sighing moan, though, was entirely Wolffe. He bit his lip to stifle more such sounds; Plo regretted it, but combined with the desperate furrow that had creased Wolffe’s brow, it told a telling tale of just how undone he was.

The vows of a Jedi were chastity, poverty, and service. Plo had never found conflict in the pursuance of them before; they aligned with his nature like a key in the proper lock. Until now, until Wolffe. He couldn't lie to himself any longer: he loved Wolffe, in the selfishly selfless manner forbidden to Jedi. Gone was his detached compassion; in its place, a fixation on his commander that could not be denied. It was nothing like the paternal, indulgent protection he gave all of his troops--or at least, it wasn't any longer, not quite. Something had changed between them, not overnight, but slowly and creepingly until Plo couldn't seem to recall a boundary, merely that at the start of the war he would have gladly called Wolffe his son, but now he yearned to call him his lover. He couldn't reconcile either with his vows.

Wolffe arched suddenly, his chest pressing up against Plo’s arm; Plo returned to himself, startled, and the chain reaction of their movements would be graven on his memory for as long as he lived. Wolffe, nearing his climax, had arched without thought, driven onward by his fantasies to reach it; the press of his skin against the rough weave of Plo’s sleeve sparked against his turgid thoughts, and he opened his eyes. Meanwhile, the press of another being’s heat against his body threw Plo into a tailspin, and in the act of glancing to Wolffe, caught also a glimpse of tanned skin, dark hair, and red, angry flesh peeking over Wolffe's hand. He tore his gaze away from the forbidden--but this time, Wolffe’s eyes fluttered open, dark slits against his flushed face, and the shock of awareness, that they were _watching_ each other, was sufficient to hurl Wolffe the last few steps.

“ _Sir_ ,” he gasped, then his orgasm took him.

Plo Koon had never had sex with another being. It was proscribed, and as far as he was concerned, a great deal of bother for very little gain. Perhaps the difference was in how one felt for one’s partner; Plo had had numerous crushes, passing fancies that dashed past with the years, but he had never been in love. When he looked upon Wolffe, he felt such an upwelling of affection and tenderness, mixed with breathless awe at his beauty and an overweening desire to see him safe and cared for (preferably by himself), that it could only be that species of sentiment called “love.” He looked on Wolffe with love in his eyes, and his hands trembled with the terrible desire to be the author, not witness, of his undoing.

Wolffe’s thoughts were far more straightforward. The force of his climax had sent a spurt of seed across Plo’s sleeve, and he was humiliated and titillated in equal measure. Humiliation won out; he reared up, heedless of the aftershocks even now rippling through him, and tried to press away his own offending flesh, as though hiding his erection would erase the evidence of his impropriety. It had been foolish of him to acquiesce to the general’s wish, and this was the proof.

“I’m--fuck, I’m sorry, sir, it was an accident--” he squirmed away from the general’s hand and gritted his teeth as the reality of abused, inflamed muscle reasserted itself. Mercifully, the pain did away with the flagging stiffness of his cock.

“What's wrong?” the general asked, his voice deep and worried. Wolffe swore he could feel that voice vibrating in his chest, so different in timbre from his brothers’. Wolffe hung his head in shame, unable even to articulate his crime. He half-leaned against the wall, smeared with his own come and his hand protectively cupping himself, and forced the words out.

“On your sleeve, sir, it got away from me. I'm _sorry_.” Wolffe wondered if it was because General Plo was a natural-born that he was so horrified by his body’s reaction. There had been a time, fondly-remembered, when he and his batcher Pike had shared a bunk; and that there had been a time when Wolffe had accidentally shot his load square in Pike’s eye. That had been a story to laugh about, and which Pike had used as leverage in everything from dessert rations to stolen minutes of sleep. Pike had died at Abregado, like so many of his brothers.

General Plo peered curiously at his sleeve and paused at the smear of white against the dark cotton. He chuckled, rich and deep. Had Wolffe not just spent himself so completely, and in so many senses of the term, he suspected he might have been left holding a second erection.

“It's easily washed,” the general said, and lowered his arm. “More important is that you found your release.”

Wolffe looked up at him, and he felt as though his raw soul was in his gaze, bare for his general to see. He trembled with exhaustion; his skin flushed hot and cold, caught between afterglow and embarrassment. He had never wanted to be brothers-by-choice with another of his own kind; he wondered what it meant, that he wanted it from as inappropriate a place as his own Jedi general.

How could Wolffe hope to explain the attraction he felt to novelty? To competence? He had been raised in a sea of homogeneity; the same face, the same body, the same philosophy, the same view outside the window. Deployment into the wider world meant encountering difference, and affected him and his brothers as though they had left rationality for funhouse absurdity. Some avoided novelty, overwhelmed by it; others, Wolffe among them, were drawn ever onward by it, tantalized by curiosity and a yearning to taste all he had been denied.

He had been raised to value ability, efficiency, and adherence to duty. The fewer bolts they wasted, the more precise and controlled their movements, the better they returned their investment. The best of them were chosen as gene donors to carry on the next generation; Wolffe was among the finest. Yet General Plo was as above Wolffe’s brothers as an oak tree was to a reed. He was hopelessly attracted to his general. He admired him, he longed to be with him, and he suspected he might love him.

General Plo simply gazed back at him, his expression unreadable behind his mask. “You should rest,” he said. “I’ll bring rations when you wake up.”

Wolffe wasn't sure why he did it. The lingering amphetamines, perhaps, or the oxytocin from orgasm. He reached out and brushed over the general’s mask, his fingertips, soft from their constant protection in his gloves, tracing etched vines. It was warm to the touch. His breath caught. The general placed a hand on the bed between them, and reality returned. Wolffe drew back as though stung.

“Sorry,” he murmured. He turned and dragged the blankets up, better hiding himself from view. He was not ashamed of his body, but he felt vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with being naked.

“Don't apologize, not for that,” the general returned just as quietly. He moved his hand to rest briefly over Wolffe’s, then he rose. “Sleep. The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll be through the comedown. I’ll be here when you wake.”

He left as quietly as he had come in, leaving Wolffe to try and find a comfortable spot, both in his bunk and in his thoughts.

XV. A Closer Examination of the Eggs in Their Host

Biochemistry is a difficult subject to predict. The slightest change in chemical composition and an entire experiment is skewed. A change in diet, a change in climate, even something as invisible as the atmosphere to which one is exposed, can all shift the native juices of one’s body from one concentration to another.

In the case of Wolffe, the entire spectrum of his body had been thrown into conflict, and the outcome was not promising.

The ten-da, the animals used by Kel Dor to host their offspring, were ruminants similar to the Alderaanian nerf. They weighed on average two-and-a-half tons, and ate a diet consisting largely of native grasses. They had also evolved in para-symbiosis with their parasitic attackers. Ancient cave paintings showed the wild ancestors of modern domesticated ten-da being hunted by early Kel Dor, and many more showed scenes of implantation. Millennia of domestication had only improved the ten-da’s fitness as hosts.

A ten-da marked for breeding purposes was given a gentle life, as it was quite often short. They would host three or four infertile clutches, with lengthy convalescences in between, before enduring their final, terminal, fertile clutch.

A species of parasitoids would never flourish if their vulnerable eggs were forced to contend with a host’s immune system directly. Therefore, an implanting Kel Dor injected a flood of antibodies along with the analgesic slurry and their eggs. Antibodies kept the host immune system from "seeing" the eggs; it took time for them to be metabolized, and if the eggs were fertile, it was time enough for the nascent larvae to develop and begin releasing immunosuppressant signals of their own. If the eggs were infertile, however, they would be attacked and destroyed when their parent's antibodies wore away.

In the case of the ten-da, the experience was little more unpleasant than a mild bout of flu. They shared a biome with Kel Dor, and moreover, they shared an evolutionary path.

Wolffe, and by extension all Humans, was different in three fundamental ways.

First: he lacked the features of pseudo-symbiotic cooperation that had evolved between the Kel Dor and the ten-da. When he metabolized Plo’s antibodies, he went into full tissue rejection, as he would to an organ transplant without immunosuppressant drugs.

Second: his blood was toxic to the eggs. They began breaking down prematurely upon exposure to his oxygen-rich hemoglobin, releasing poisonous compounds into his bloodstream.

Third: his body lacked the ability to excrete certain of these compounds. Instead of leaving his body via sweat or urine, they began to build in his liver, ticking down to a lethal dose.

He carried within him a time bomb, and unbeknownst to either him or Plo Koon, his time was running out.

Had someone been monitoring Wolffe’s condition, it wouldn't have been a surprise when Wolffe collapsed during a battalion formation. But Wolffe’s stubbornness and Plo’s desperate wish to forget conspired to hide the conflict tearing Wolffe’s immune system apart. It shouldn't have been a surprise when he collapsed. But for those who remembered General Plo Koon’s reaction upon seeing his commander crumple mid-step, it was.

XVI. Pyrrhus Vies With Decius

Had Wolffe been anywhere close to his right mind, he would have objected to his general carrying him through the cargo bay, in full view of the entire battalion, in the most strenuous possible terms. Wolffe was not himself, however. A snarl of pain had lodged itself in his stomach, and it would not be ignored. It attacked in the middle of formation, and Wolffe had curled in on himself in abject agony, his vision blurring behind the protection of his helmet; his awareness of the world dimmed to the confines of his body and the pain it held. His memory of subsequent events narrowed to a series of impressions: cold air on his sweaty face as the general removed his helmet; Blast’s worry-creased brow hovering overhead; a dire need to reassure everyone that nothing was the matter; the agony of being moved.

The fever had been building for several days. Wolffe had done his best not to think about it. The possibility that his body would respond badly to the eggs had crossed his mind, of course it had--but the general had said they would resorb, and so resorb they would. Perhaps this was just his body reacting to Kel Dor biochemistry, and after a few cramps it would resolve itself and the eggs would be no more.

(He knew better, of course. He knew what happened to inflamed, suppurant tissue. He knew what foreign material lodged in a stomach cavity could do. But he would keep his general’s secrets, even if it cost him his life.)

The fraction of his mind not consumed with pain and childish fear (and which wasn't seeking shelter in the arms of his commanding officer) was ashamed that his men had seen him brought so low. Wolffe would have bled out on the floor of his quarters rather than faint in front of his men--or to have attention called to it by General Plo picking him up like a youngling and depositing him on the stretcher the medics pulled out of gods knew where.

Around him was noise, torrents of noise--shouting, the clank of armor plates against each other, footsteps, the rumble of Plo’s voice through his chest. Wolffe couldn't make out the general’s words, and the gentle, soft tone he used made no sense, overlaying, as it did, sheer panic.

The trip to the medbay went by in a haze. The only thought in Wolffe’s mind: _Maybe General Plo was wrong. Maybe they **were** fertile_. He had convinced himself that it would be glorious to die for his general’s future children, but now that it came down to it, he wanted more than anything to live. Hot tears ran down his temples. He burned with shame.

Plo had been brought to speechlessness more times than he cared to contemplate over the past week, more times than he could recall happening in the past decade; but seeing Wolffe stagger mid-step and collapse to his knees had been the first time he had ever experienced genuine terror. The strangled bark of pain Wolffe had made when he hit the ground would never leave him.

“I--I’m alright--” he'd gasped when Plo had pulled off his helmet.

“Of course,” Plo had replied, running through his body with a tendril of the Force. He was no healer, to be knowledgeable in the delicate equilibrium of a Human body; but even he could detect the malignancy festering in Wolffe’s abdomen. His breath had caught.

Wolffe’s fingers had knotted in Plo’s tabard. “Help me up, I have to finish the inspection--”

“Medic!” Plo had bellowed instead, craning over the stunned, curious presences of his troops, fear curdling in the pit of his stomach.

“No,” Wolffe had said, his face creased in pain and anguish. “No, no… I can finish the…”

“What happened?” Blast demanded, skidding on his poleyns over the polished floor of the hangar bay. He checked Wolffe’s pulse and temperature. “Shit, he's running 40.1 centigrade. Commander, do you read us?”

“There is--it appears a clutch of alien eggs has penetrated his abdominal cavity,” Plo said, forcing himself to say the words. The time for secrets had long passed. “They have become infected.”

Blast’s expression was blown open with shock. “He said it was the _crud_!” he yelled at Wolffe's prostrate form. “This is not ‘just a planetary virus,’ you--you _idiot_!”

“Gotta get back up,” Wolffe muttered back. “Gotta, it’ll go away--” He had tried to push them away and sit up, but instead he hissed in pain and collapsed again.

“Can you lift him?” Blast had asked, and Plo bent to pick Wolffe up, desperately gently, cushioning him with the Force where he could, cradling him against his chest. He could see the E-team running over with a stretcher; he rose to feet, Wolffe tucked in his arms, and went to meet them.

“Please put me down,” Wolffe had murmured into Plo’s chest, deceptively coherent. His thoughts were scattered; Plo could feel them fluttering like moths before the fevered flame of Wolffe’s mind.

“Not quite yet,” he had said, pitching his voice low. “Just a little further.”

He did his best to ease Wolffe’s pain, but his emotions were scattered, and serenity was not to be found. The white-knuckled clench of Wolffe’s hand in his robe threw his inner peace to the interstellar winds. He eased Wolffe down onto the stretcher and he would have sworn to the High Council itself that he left his heart with him.

He turned for one last detail. “Major Sinker, dismiss the battalion. You have command.”

“Yes, sir!”

Plo Koon followed the stretcher, feeling as though he had swallowed a pitcher of raw acid.

XVII. Wherein the Corrosion of Shame Threatens a Just Man’s Soul

The next hours were interminable. There was no place for Plo to wait during Wolffe’s surgery; what need was there for a waiting room on a warship? He spent the time in his quarters instead, attempting to bring order to his thoughts.

Fact: infertile or not, Plo’s eggs were killing Wolffe. Plo feared losing Wolffe, and he feared his crime being discovered.

Fact: Plo was now a criminal in the eyes of Dorin Law. Should his actions be revealed, he would be stripped of his rank of Baran Do Sage and spend a very long time in Dorin prison. He was disgusted by his own cowardice and weakness.

Fact: Blast hadn't contacted him in over two standard hours. Had he recognized the eggs as Kel Dor biomass? Would he confront Plo? Would he--

Such questions were useless. They were beyond Plo’s ability to control, and therefore any attempt to control them would only worsen his distress. He gazed down upon his emotions as from a distance. He opened himself to his worry and allowed it to dissipate into the Force. He opened himself to his fear of apprehension and allowed it to dissipate into the Force. He let them pass through him and he saw the clarity they left behind. He opened himself to his fear of losing Wolffe, and his chest tightened. It was an imperfect attempt. He opened himself to his self-disgust, and it lodged like a stone in his belly. His composure cracked. He fell out of meditation, shaking.

“Oh, Wolffe, I am sorry,” he said to the quiet of his quarters, but it brought him no solace. He knelt upon a rich meditation mat, surround by a literal fortune of spacious privacy, wearing the robes of a respected religious leader. Plo Koon was a travesty of a Jedi. There was nothing in him but attachment.

A chirp rose from the desk, where he had laid his vambraces. Plo surged to accept the incoming comms call. “Blast?”

“You had better come down to the medbay, sir.”

“Is he alright?”

“Just… come down, sir.”

Plo spent the trip in a controlled frenzy. What scraps of composure he had gained in meditation had vanished. He understood a little better, now, why Master Yoda insisted that attachment was the path to the Dark Side: with such intense, uncontrollable emotions, it wouldn't require a moment’s effort to draw on them. It would be _easy_ , the way rage made it easy for an abuser to strike their spouse. Plo forced himself to stand still in the lift and not pace. If he could not be trusted to use the Force as a Jedi, at least he could carry himself as one.

Blast appeared quickly when he entered the medbay, wearing surgical scrubs and a bleak expression. He led Plo down a supply corridor and said, “His odds of pulling through aren't looking good, sir.”

The world warped into something Plo didn't recognize. “What do you mean?”

“The infection is damn near systemic. There are a bunch of foreign toxins monkeying with his organ function--his clotting factors are screwy, and he can't seem to regulate his temperature. We’ve got him on hemodialysis, but he doesn't seem to be responding. He's--well, he's dying, and we’re just prolonging his pain.”

Plo was a block of ice. “You mean compassionate euthanasia,” he said. His voice seemed to come from far away.

Blast was looking down at his feet. “Yes, sir.” He swallowed. “We--we can't justify the cost, not if he stays like this for any length of time.”

“No.” Plo’s shock evaporated in a furnace blast of rage. “ _No._ ” He stepped forward, black, fear driving through him. “He will not die, and you will not kill him. Do you understand me, Captain?”

“Yes, sir,” Blast said, his eyes wide. He was watching Plo as though he was a surprise SBD that had crept up on him while he was reloading his cartridge.

The incongruity of the image kicked Plo back to himself. Blast was a battleaxe. He didn't cower, even in the face of overwhelming odds--yet now he was, his shoulders hunched in, his body turned slightly to the side to ward off blows, his eyes large and wary.

Plo realized he was looming. He stood at two meters, tall for a Human but average for a Kel Dor, and he outweighed the average clone by three kilos. All this, and he had the Force as well, crackling low and powerful all around him, begging for release. He could overpower a clone in a heartbeat. He could kill him in two.

He took a step back and then another. Shame reared through him. He was riven with it, his bones were rotten through with it. His muscles ached with it. His spirit was heavy and stained with the bitter smear of his wrongdoing.

“Please do all you can for Wolffe’s survival,” he said quietly, his limbs feeling heavier than he could carry. “I will approve whatever you need.”

Blast straightened, his face determined. “Yes, sir!” He saluted Plo and disappeared back down the hall. Plo was certain Blast would never speak of this moment again, to preserve Plo’s dignity. Loyalty ran deep among the clones, even to protecting their generals’ indiscretions.

 _Or was he more afraid of the consequences should he fail?_ Plo asked himself bitterly. He fiddled with his ritual claws, turning them around on his middle fingers. He had nearly succumbed to the Dark Side at the mere thought of losing Wolffe. A part of him quibbled, saying that passion arising from love was purer than passion arising from hate, but Plo knew better. The Dark Side didn't care about the nature of the emotion, merely that you acted upon it. It was the enemy of control. Some few among the Jedi had mastered the dangerous art of fueling one’s battle strength through emotion, but even then it was an act of supreme control and inner stability. _There is no passion; there is serenity_. It wasn't an art Plo had studied. The memory of Blast’s face came to him. He had been overwhelmed with passion, and he had nearly acted upon it.

What manner of Jedi was he, if a lifetime of training could be so easily overthrown? He turned and walked down the hall, hands clasped behind his back, and contemplated the harsh realities of the person into which this war was making him.

XVIII. Solus Agol

The steady beep of a heart monitor was the first thing Wolffe heard, creeping through his consciousness in a monotone pulse. _I’ve been drugged_ , he thought. His second thought was that he had been captured by the Separatists. Clone commanders were excellent sources of information--if they could be cracked. And they, unlike the Jedi, couldn't use the Force to resist.

Slowly the smells of the medbay trickled in: bacta, sweat, an undertone of blood and infection. The murmuring voices of his brothers followed. Wolffe relaxed. He was safe.

Except that he had collapsed in front of the entire battalion, and General Plo had _carried_ him to the stretcher. Leaving aside the horror of imposing on his general, the humiliation of showing weakness in front of his men was enough to send his pulse skyrocketing. The heart monitor beeped like a det countdown.

A warm hand came down on his arm. “Breathe, Wolffe,” General Plo said.

“Sir?”

“Relax. You are in medbay of the _Courageous_. You’re safe.”

Wolffe snorted, and immediately regretted it. Pain shot up from his abdomen, pushed beyond the tender care of the pain meds. He groaned.

“Wolffe?”

“I’m alright,” he said through a voice strained tight. “Feel like bug guts on a windshield, but otherwise I’m A-OK.”

The general didn’t say anything in reply, and that made Wolffe peer through the veil of reflexive tears. General Plo never passed up an opportunity to make fun of Wolffe, though his wry comments were far gentler than anything a brother would say. He was standing beside Wolffe’s bed in a position uncomfortably similar to parade rest, his head bowed to stare somewhere in the vicinity of Wolffe’s stomach.

“Sir?” he said again, more cautiously this time.

The general inhaled as though to speak, but Blast came around the corner.

“Good, you’re awake,” Blast said, the same thing he had said the last four times Wolffe had ended up in his medbay. He came up beside Wolffe’s bed and scribbled a few things from the monitors onto his datapad, then put it, and his hands, behind his back. He looked silently at Wolffe for a minute. Wolffe fought the urge to squirm. He was intimidated by no man, but he was scared shitless of his lead medic.

“So,” Blast said. “You decided to take your medical care into your own hands. _Again_.”

Wolffe tried to head him off. “It isn’t like that--”

“No, you’re damn right it’s not, this time some local bug laid its _eggs_ in you and you fucking decided to, to what, walk it off? Explain it to me, Wolffe!”

“I--it was--” he forced himself not to look at the general. “It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal,” he finished, and he hoped it didn’t sound as pathetic to Blast as it did to his own ears, well-trained to detect the most minute amount of bantha shit from his men.

Blast dropped the datapad on the edge of Wolffe’s bed and ran his hands down his face. “I’m utterly at a loss, here, Commander. You instituted a battalion-wide procedure no less than eight months ago requiring all men returning from a planetary op, no matter how minor, to visit the medbay. You were standing up in front of the battalion just like you did today to make sure everyone heard it. You included it in the induction datapacket all shinies receive. You fucking dragged Boost’s ass in here for the goddamn _sniffles_ you take it so seriously. So _why the fuck_ did you think you were above your own karking rule?”

General Plo shifted. “Blast, I think--”

“Respectfully sir, shut up,” Wolffe said quietly. “Blast is right.” He shared a look with the general, and mercifully the general subsided.

Blast looked between them, his glance toward General Plo warier than Wolffe had ever seen it. “I don’t care what the fuck is going on, whether it’s Jedi business or what. But if you _ever_ threaten your life like that again, Wolffe, I’m going to use the channels _you_ set up to report negligent treatment of GAR property. Do you understand me?”

It felt like he was getting dressed down by his instructor on Kamino, again. “Yes, sir.”

“ _Good_. Now that that’s out of the way, would you like to know how your surgery went?”

Wolffe swallowed. His mouth was dry as a bone. “Well, since you’re reaming me out instead of talking gently, I’m going to assume it went well.”

“No thanks to you. I suctioned almost a hundred eggs out of you and bathed your abdominal cavity in bacta to clear out all the pus. There was a lot of pus, my brother, I hope you appreciate how close you came to killing yourself. You’re lucky nothing was necrotic, or I’d be using that gentle voice.”

Fierfek. No wonder he felt like he'd taken a walk down a droid assembly line. He glanced to the general, unable to stop himself, but he was masked and impassive, and so controlled that Wolffe couldn't read a thing off him.

Blast went on. “I need more bacta and blood, by the way. You get me the bacta and I’ll organize a blood drive.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Wolffe said in a hoarse croak.

“Also: there are four drains in your stomach wall. They’ll come out tomorrow if you’re a good convalescent and don’t fucking touch them. Right now you’re on an anti-inflammatory/antibiotic cocktail. We’ll start weaning you off the pain meds in a couple days, and you can start contemplating the depths of your idiocy. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Hit that button if you feel the overwhelming urge to vomit, so I can come give you an antiemetic. Puking will rip open the glue holding your stomach together.”

“Thank you, Blast.”

“Fuck you, sir. You’d better get me that bacta yesterday.” He stalked out, leaving Wolffe to the mercies of the med droids and General Plo.

Wolffe gave himself a moment to breathe. He was itchy with painkillers, his throat was drier than Tatooine, and there was a tube stuck up his cock so he didn’t wet the bed. Also, his general was hovering over him, and now that Blast was away, he began exuding shame so loudly it made Wolffe ashamed and irritated on his behalf. He was a Jedi, not a lost youngling.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” the general finally said, his delivery stilted.

Wolffe swallowed, or at least he tried to. He debated the merits of keeping silent rather than making his general do anything for him, but the way the insides of his throat stuck together decided him. One more small imposition couldn’t hurt, on top of the trainwreck of the inspection. “Could you find me some ice chips?”

“Of course.” General Plo bowed and walked toward the nearest med droid. Wolffe’s skin crawled. It wasn’t _right_ for a Jedi to bend himself over backward like this for a clone. He made up his mind, and when the general returned, a small cup of ice in his hand, he said,

“Sir, you don’t need to stay here. Blast has my back.”

General Plo held still for a moment. He set the cup down beside Wolffe’s bed. “It is my duty to ensure my troops are in top form,” he said, and damn it if he didn’t sound exactly like the bantha shit he’d fed Blast. Wolffe looked away.

The truth of it was, Wolffe hated feeling vulnerable. He hated other people seeing him vulnerable, and General Plo had seen more of Wolffe being pathetic in the past several days than he cared to contemplate. His general needed a commander who was effective, not weak. But how could he explain this so that the general would understand? Not directly, that was for sure.

“You shouldn't stay here, sir," he said quietly, looking at the perfect diagonal creases in the sheets on the bed next to his. “The battalion needs a commanding officer.”

“I left Sinker--”

“Sinker isn’t good enough,” Wolffe interrupted. “He can lead a brace of companies, but a battalion is beyond him. I need you to unstick yourself from my bedside and do your duty, _sir_.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue. He swallowed, and he grimaced.

“I see,” the general said, and Wolffe couldn’t understand the tone he heard. He forced himself not to look, but he could imagine the general steepling his fingers well enough. “If that is how you assess the situation, then I will take your advice. However, I would ask one thing.”

Wolffe nodded, unable to speak.

“Don’t lie to me again about the state of your health, Wolffe. I cannot bear the thought of losing you.” With that, he turned and quietly left the medbay. Low sounds of conversation echoed from the main ward, punctuated by the ever-present beep of the heart monitor.

 _I cannot bear the thought of losing you_. How could a Jedi say that about him? Wolffe didn't doubt the general meant it, he meant every word he said, but the sentiment was grossly misplaced. General Plo should be placing his faith in the Force, like a Jedi was meant to, not in a lowly clone soldier.

Still. Just thinking about it sent a flush of heat through Wolffe’s chest. He sagged back into his pillows and replayed the general’s words over and over, sucking the pleasure out of them like marrow from a bone.

He was released a week later on pain of Blast’s retribution. It had been a week of boredom, agonizing restlessness, and a stew of uncertainty. The general hadn't returned once. Sinker came when his interim duties permitted, and Boost, who had rendezvoused with the _Courageous_ in the Bestine system, arrived in the medbay in an explosion of merriment and newly-earned ARC bravado.

“Did you miss me, sir?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

“No,” Wolffe replied, but they both knew he was lying; he’d taken Boost’s hand as soon as he’d gotten close to the bed and hadn't let go since.

“I don't know why you never wear your pauldron, sir, it's the best fucking thing for picking up hungry brothers. I've gotten more sex since graduating than--”

“Are you seriously gonna regale me with your sexual history?”

“Why, should I ask about yours? Let's see, first it was Wolffe’s right hand, but then he mixed it up and tried his _left_ hand, that was a wild time.”

“Least I know where my hands have been.”

“That's not what Blast tells me,” Boost said, waggling his brows. “Or wait, maybe I should say your guts. Remind me never to fuck you ever again, sir.”

Wolffe looked away, his levity collapsing. He kept his sudden, defensive irritation to himself. It wasn't Boost’s fault he'd stepped on a landmine. “Yeah, okay.”

Boost backed off at Wolffe’s unspoken signals. He was smart, like that. After a moment of mental scraping, he chose a new tack. “So where’s the general? I would have thought he'd be glued to your side.”

Not. Boost’s. Fault. Wolffe gritted his teeth, uncertain how to explain what was wrong without sharing secrets that weren't his to share. “I made him leave,” he finally said.

Boost’s alarm was tangible. “Did something happen?”

Was it really so out of character for him? “You could say that,” he muttered.

Boost hesitated. He was an ARC, but he came by his perceptivity naturally. It was why Wolffe had sponsored him for training in the first place. “Was it something bad?”

Wolffe didn't reply right away, but the words hung suspended between them, waiting for a reply. Jedi didn’t do bad things. Jedi were omniscient and all-powerful. Jedi were infallible, good, and always just. Except, this far into the war, they both knew that wasn’t true. Not even Plo Koon. They were clones, however, and their conditioning went deep. It was uncomfortable to implicate him, even as obliquely as this.

“No,” Wolffe said firmly. “Nothing bad.” He kept his hand in Boost’s, drawing comfort from the presence of one of his last brothers. “Just hard.”

Boost moved closer, until the edge of the mattress compressed against his thigh plates. “Anything I can do to help?”

Wolffe stared up at him, at his earnest face and his double stripe hair, then took hold of his pauldron strap and dragged him down until their foreheads touched. “Look out for Sinker,” he said. “He’s acting SIC while I'm laid up. Make sure he doesn’t overwhelm himself.”

“Yes, sir. You sure that’s it, though? I could suck you off while we’re here.”

Wolffe was in the general ward now, surrounded by brothers he didn't trust and even a few of the non-clone personnel the _Courageous_ carried. There were brothers who didn't care about a non-clone audience, and would have jerked each other off anyway--much to the dismay of the medics and birthers. Wolffe had never been an exhibitionist. “Nah. I just want to sleep.”

“You got it, sir. You know my comm code if you change your mind.”

“Piss off.”

Boost gave a smart salute and disappeared, flirting with a brother with his leg in a cast on the way out. Wolffe rolled his eyes.

Three more days passed before Blast gave him the go-ahead to return to his quarters. “ _Light_ duties,” he said with a threatening finger. Wolffe grudgingly listened to the lecture on taking care of himself, then leaned on Boost and Sinker as they carted him back to his quarters.

General Plo didn't come at all. Wolffe struggled not to let his confused emotions eat him alive.

XIX. The Bitter Balm of Absolution

Wolffe was working through his appalling backlog of paperwork when a chime came through from his door. He checked the chrono--2300 ship time. Who the fuck wanted to waste his time _now_? He grumbled as he gingerly hauled himself out of his chair and winced over to the door. He pounded on the control panel, his face set in a deep scowl, before he was brought up short. General Plo stood on the other side. Wolffe stared at him for almost a full minute in complete surprise.

“I have our next orders,” the general said, sounding uncomfortable in a way he hadn’t since the early days of the battalion. He held out a datachip.

Wolffe took it. “Thank you, sir.” He stared at the chip and wondered why his eyes were pricking.

“Are you--are you alright, Wolffe?”

The general sounded wistful and looked, despite his mask, worried. Maybe longing. Wolffe was probably seeing things. He shrugged. “Fit for duty, sir. Light duty, anyway.” _Please don’t go_ , his inner voice wailed. _I’m sorry, please don’t go_.

By some miracle, General Plo didn’t. He stood dumbly in the doorway, until Wolffe came to a decision and stepped back. “You’d better come in, sir.”

General Plo did. When he brushed past, Wolffe smelled clean linen and the dark, spicy scent of his moisturizing oil. Wolffe’s cock twitched at the scent, sense memory betraying him, and he forced himself to remember Khorm. He went soft immediately, thank the Little Gods.

The general was staring at his bunk. Vivid memories of the last time the general had been in his room flashed through his mind, and he cursed silently. So much for keeping control over himself. He tossed the chip on the desk and turned to keep the general in his sights.

“I’ll keep this short,” the general said, rushing through his words. “I have… I have done you a great injustice, Wolffe. Words aren’t enough to convey my regrets for the cruelty I have shown you. I sincerely hope that we can find a way to continue working together, but if you would rather we don’t, I can.” He swallowed. “I can find an alternative."

What he was saying refused to make sense. Wolffe frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“If you no longer wish to serve beneath me I can arrange a transfer, or I can take command of a different battalion.”

It sounded like a canned speech. The general had _practiced_ saying this osik. Wolffe’s confusion morphed into irritation and panic. “Why would I want that!”

General Plo steepled his hands, but Wolffe could see how his fingers trembled. “I will not force you to remain near me.”

Wolffe gaped at him. He couldn't comprehend that his general had thought this of him. He took a step closer. “Sir I--if this is about what I said in the medbay, that was because I--I wasn’t in top form, and I didn't want you to see it. You need officers who can do their job and don't waste resources with their own stupidity.”

The general’s head came up, his brow creasing thunderously. “You are _not_ stupid.”

“Say what you want, sir, but I ended up in medbay because I acted like a bolt-brained shiny.”

“You were protecting a secret you should never have had to protect,” Plo replied, his voice strained. He wasn't sure how it was happening, but he and Wolffe were moving closer and closer as they talked. “I used you, Wolffe. I won't force you to stay near me, now.”

“But I want to,” Wolffe said. “I volunteered for this op, General.”

“Would you have, if you'd known it would kill you?”

“Yes,” Wolffe replied immediately. “I already did.”

Plo shook his head and backed away, driven by his shame. Force, he _wanted_. “It's not volunteering when you haven't the choice to say no.”

“Excuse me?” Wolffe’s voice had gone sharp. “Did you just imply that I _can’t_ say no to you?”

Plo straightened his shoulders. “I said that, yes.” He turned around to face his commander. “Over the past days, I have considered our situation, and I realized that there is no true way to be certain whether or not your decisions toward me are coerced.”

“And _my_ word has no bearing on the matter.”

“You see through a veil of conditioning and enforced obedience. You are loyal absolutely to the Jedi; any choice you make with respect to one is therefore--”

“Fuck the Jedi,” Wolffe said, panic sublimating into anger. “I'm loyal to _you_.” The words came out without his willing them to; he suspected he would have said anything to shut the general up, to stop this line of thought that threatened to take him away from Wolffe. His bold statement was ruined when his knees buckled, one hand gripping the chair back and the other pressing against his stomach. 

Plo went to Wolffe without hesitation. Wolffe sagged against him, his body heavy and warm against Plo’s, his forehead the sweetest press into his shoulder.

“Respectfully, sir,” Wolffe said, sounding exhausted, “you’re not thinking any clearer when it comes to me.”

“That is undeniable,” Plo replied. He helped Wolffe shuffle over to his bunk. “Is it your surgery site?”

“It's not too happy with me,” Wolffe said. “Got the drains out a couple days ago, they hurt like a chakaar.” He looked up at Plo. “If all you're going to do when I talk about it is feel sorry for yourself, you can leave.”

Plo bit back on his reflexive outrage. “My apologies,” he said instead. “Old habits die hard.” He eased Wolffe down onto the bunk. Wolffe went with a sigh, his mouth tight with pain.

“May I?” Plo asked, gesturing to the edge of the bed.

“Knock yourself out,” Wolffe replied, not sounding as though he cared one way or the other. Plo sat, turning so he could still watch Wolffe’s face.

“Why were you working, if you're this exhausted?”

“I'm not going to sit here being useless,” Wolffe said. “I can still do my job.”

Plo restrained a sigh. Uselessness was a common fear among his men. It was too deep-seated for his words to have any effect, but still he rested his hand on Wolffe’s shin and said, “Taking time to heal is never a waste of time. And I won't think less of you for needing to take it.”

The corner of Wolffe’s mouth quirked up. So mobile, were human mouths. “No offense, sir, but I don't think you're an unbiased source.”

“I'm more reliable than any of your brothers, who would simply reinforce such thinking.”

Wolffe snorted. “Yeah, okay.” He looked uncertain for a moment. “Sir, would you--would you mind doing that pain thing again?”

His face was flushed with embarrassment, and he forced himself to meet Plo’s gaze--but he couldn't hold it. His fingers plucked at the covers beneath him.

“Of course,” Plo replied. His skin tightened as he settled into the position he had taken a week previous, kneeling beside Wolffe’s bunk. Wolffe tensed, but as soon as Plo put his hand against his temple he relaxed, and his eyes went heavy.

“Thank you, sir,” he murmured. He burrowed into his blankets with a soft sigh.

“I did mean to brief you on the mission.”

“Yes, sir. Where are they sending us next?”

“Cato Neimoidia. It's a supply airdrop over the 327th’s position.”

“I'll look it over tomorrow. You should sleep too, sir.”

Plo let his longing speak for him, despite his better judgment. “Would you mind if I spent the night here?”

“Plenty of room,” Wolffe said, patting the bunk beside him.

“I couldn't impose.” Images of sleeping next to Wolffe filled Plo’s thoughts, slow and tantalizing. He could more easily protect Wolffe that way. He could shield his small, frangible body from the dangers of the galaxy.

“Suit yourself,” Wolffe replied on a sleepy sigh. He turned his face into the covers, his neck and shoulder bare to Plo’s gaze. The curve of his cheek was echoed by the curve of his shoulder, his skin burnished bronze in the lamplight. Hard muscle and raw strength, held in a deceptively young body. Plo felt tenderness overtake him as he watched Wolffe loosen into sleep.

He might be a lesser Jedi than he thought, but he wouldn't trade this for any wisdom or insight of the Order. Wolffe was _his_. He was Wolffe’s. He supposed he would have to learn the rest as he went. Restraint bled from him as the hours marched by; Wolffe slept so deeply when he was near, the way a child might in the presence of his parent. Carefully, so as not to wake him, Plo climbed into his bunk. He wrapped himself about Wolffe’s heated, Human body and let himself fall asleep.

He dreamed of an indeterminate future, of a young man raising a fledgling Jedi order, his wife at his side. It was forgotten by the time he woke.

XX. Two Figures, Side-by-Side

“--if you angle the insertion like this, the way I showed you earlier, then we can ride the updraft and drop the supplies just behind their lines, while using the cliff face as cover from the AA fire--”

“Hyperdrive engines online, waiting for your mark--”

“--make sure you have them check their bombers before we get to Neimoidian space--“

Wolffe stood in the ops room, his helmet under his arm and his attention focused on the tactical map before him. He knew this operation inside out; he had planned from top to bottom. It was impeccable. A slow pride suffused through him.

“Officer on deck!”

The men of the GAR stiffened to attention as General Plo walked in, his hands behind his back, his simple robes pristine. Wolffe smiled to himself, his glow of pride turning smug. They had been far from pristine that morning.

General Plo stepped up beside Wolffe. “Commander,” he said in greeting, a wry tone in his voice that let Wolffe know he knew _exactly_ what he was thinking. The smugness turned into something softer and warmer, and the corner of Wolffe’s mouth quirked up.

“General,” he replied.

“Is the _Courageous_ ready for the jump to lightspeed?”

“She is, General,” Admiral Gyatso said. “We’re waiting on your orders.”

General Plo nodded. “Excellent. I leave the ship in your capable hands, Admiral.” He turned toward the bridge; Wolffe fell in step just behind his shoulder, and it seemed for them in that moment as though they had always stood thus, and always would, until the war was no more.

“I’m looking forward to flying, again,” Plo said, half conversationally.

“I’m looking forward to you having your feet back on solid decking,” Wolffe replied.

The _Courageous_ , small against the vastness of space, seemed to hang frozen in time. Sunlight poured over her bow; hope and high spirits filled her from within. Then with a surge of power that defied the size of their frail construction, the triple hyperdrive engines engaged. The stars stretched, spacetime warped; the ship disappeared. Pachys Prime spun in its wake, eighteen moons its crown of jewels: a forgotten system once more.

The war raged on.

***

END

**Author's Note:**

> If you like what you read and want more questionable discussion of aliens and coercion and the inherently tragic history of the clones, come visit us at the [Star Wars ITP chat](http://zorekryk.tumblr.com/post/151027254966/star-wars-chat)! We're only mean to the characters :)


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